


A Broken Cup

by elim_garak, NikitaSunshine



Category: Homeland
Genre: AU, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Multi, Origins, post 5.10
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-02-24 06:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 184,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13208025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elim_garak/pseuds/elim_garak, https://archiveofourown.org/users/NikitaSunshine/pseuds/NikitaSunshine
Summary: "Because someone has to care abouthislife more... ...And yes, maybe hewouldwant this. But someone has to say 'no' tohim too. No more. Somebody has to sayenough. He’sdoneenough. Beenthroughenough.Givenenough. Givenupenough.Just… enough..."*****CHAPTER 21Day 3 - The MissionIS NEW! *****





	1. No

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gnomecat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gnomecat/gifts), [FrangipaniFlower](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrangipaniFlower/gifts), [InchByInch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InchByInch/gifts), [a blueberry moon (Violiko)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violiko/gifts), [hidingupatreeorsomething](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hidingupatreeorsomething/gifts), [GiuliaM](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GiuliaM/gifts).



> It's just been too hard, you know...
> 
> I feel I can't do this anymore. In the end, it's that one person many of us here care about. And we keep warping the universe to give him what he wants. I seriously think maybe sometimes NOT is the best way. 
> 
> I never thought I'd end up writing an AU. I mean a complete AU. But hey, it made me feel like flying. 
> 
> I am not referencing any deleted scenes here. Just the spirit of one that made me think very hard and doubt the premise of 'he wants Carrie, so he should be given what he wants'. Maybe he should be slapped into seeing that he should have what he deserves. In the end. Maybe, just maybe, there was a person in his life who would be to him what he was always to others. I don't think Carrie ever was. Or was going to. Not for the lack of her trying. But maybe just for the lack of being able to prioritize when it really mattered. 
> 
> This will have lots of back story and lots of things maybe happening in the background in canon. They are all my imagination. But in the end, Homeland is AFG's. And the magic is ours. So...

**January 2018**

 

Figuring out beginnings is such a bitch. Seriously.

If you think it’s hard to predict the ending of a good thriller, try this: take an important thing in your life and try to figure out how it started. You know what? Forget _how_ . Just try _when_.

See?

The moment you think you have it - that exact moment that made it all possible - you start wondering… About the choices you made in your life that shaped you into who you were the day the two of you met, and the circumstances that brought your patrol car into that bar. About the day you chose the police academy over college. About the way you chose to wear your hair that day, because later he’d said that it was the way it framed your face that made him just stare at you in the holding cell. About picking up a pile of someone’s dry cleaning on a hunch. A gut feeling, really. About letting him go. About kissing him many years later, despite being married. Just because he needed it. And then realising that your whole marriage had been one big misunderstanding. A fool’s errand of mistaking the need to have someone in your life with the need for love. Because love is when you can’t sleep for months, wondering if he’d ever gotten over killing that child.

Then, and this is in _no_ chronological order, there is the day that you sit in front of your child, having told him there was something important you need to talk about, and not even knowing where to start. Because the beginnings can do that to you - fuck with your mind until you’re lost in the debris of your own lifetime. Because the truth is, the day your child was born was not even the beginning of _his_ story. And it sure as hell was not the beginning of that one thing that you’re still trying to figure out.

Funny enough, though, you end up chuckling at your own thoughts, letting out a long sigh, looking down at the cup of coffee in your hand and thinking…

_‘... it began with a broken cup.’_

A cup identical to this one, in fact. It is one from her favourite set - tall, muddy green coffee mugs. There used to be six of them - only three left now.

It all probably started the day one of them slipped from her hand and shattered at her feet, spilling coffee all over the kitchen floor. Chronologically, it makes no sense. But then, beginnings are sneaky like that - they really have _nothing_ to do with time.

It was over a year and a half ago. She was listening to the news and getting ready for work. She’d been divorced for almost three years by then. And it all already seemed like a long forgotten dream. Like it had never even happened.

She has three deep scars on her back to remind her of that day. That, and the fact that what had until then been four green mugs is now three.

And then there is this…

A hand comes from behind her, unceremoniously taking her mug and gone just as fast. She turns around, ready to protest, just in time to see him walk into the kitchen. She sees him going through the drawers until he finds a tall paper cup. He pours her coffee into it, places it on the counter, then finds the remaining two green mugs and dumps all three into the trash can. He walks back over and hands her the coffee in a paper cup.

_Paper cups don’t break. You don’t end up slipping on the spilled coffee and falling on the shards so hard you need surgery to remove some from your back._

As he talks on the phone with his faculty adviser, he runs a hand along her back. The scars are tangible even through her blouse. His thumb lingers over them, each and every one, and his eyes never leave hers. He has this thing about him - saying everything while saying nothing at all. It’s the eyes. And the lips, when he leans down to place a kiss on her temple. They say ‘No more green cups to hurt you. Ever’. Then he takes a sip from her coffee and grins defiantly. _This man and his coffee…_

“Go get your own,” she laughs, pushing him away to resume the process of getting ready for work.

He stops her and shows her his closed hand. She raises an eyebrow and gives him a quizzical stare. He opens his fist to reveal a small object on his palm. It’s the earring she’s been looking for all morning. He drops it in her hand and closes her fingers around it. Kisses her wrist and his attention is back to his faculty adviser.

It’s been a tough semester, and it’s time to make some decisions. For all of them. Moving to Boston won’t be easy. But they’ll do it. She’s already been offered two different positions as a homicide detective. Finding a good school won’t be a problem. Mostly, she’s just so goddamn proud of him. And, although, he knows she’d move there even without a plan - hell, she’d follow him to the end of the world if necessary - he has spent the last few months making sure his family will have an easy transition as he continues to pursue his graduate degree.

This ‘saying nothing at all’ is what they’ve always been good at. That’s why on the inside of her wedding band there is a verse from that Ronan Keating song: _try as I may I can never explain what I hear when you don’t say a thing_.

He’s still on the phone - listening, writing things down, opening his email account on his laptop to see the forms he’s been sent - when she’s ready to leave.

She’s trying to be quiet, not wanting to break his concentration, as she stops to quickly kiss him goodbye, just pressing her lips into his hair. But even before she has a chance to pull away, she hears him say, “Morrie, I’ll call you back in ten.” He puts the phone on the desk and pulls her in, onto his knees.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she laughs. “You’re going to wrinkle my suit. And I’m late as it is.”

“I’ll call your boss. He likes me.”

She rolls her eyes. It’s true.

“Well, he doesn’t like you _that_ much anymore, seeing as you’re taking me to Boston. And, besides...”

They never find out what the ‘besides’ was. As his hands slide under her blouse she gasps his name and sinks into his lips. Three seconds later, being carried back into the bedroom, she laughs again.

“You’re supposed to call Morrie back in ten minutes!” It’s not really a protest, more along the lines of stating the obvious.

“Not the _narrowest_ mission window I’ve ever had,” he smirks, before kissing her again as they collapse on the bed.

  
  


Maybe... the beginnings don’t matter so much after all.

Words definitely don’t.

Court orders don’t.

National security doesn’t...

The Patriot Act doesn’t…

Neither does the Geneva Convention...

In the end, all that really matters is standing between the man you love and the people in his life coming to risk it again. And saying NO. Because… no, they _don’t_ know him. No, what he does is not _all_ he is. No, the chance of him _maybe_ having the information they need is _not_ enough to take the father from a child who never knew him. And _yes_ , if something happens to him, if they take another step, you won’t care who they are. Because even if it’s the _last_ thing you do, you will make the latest security breach look like child’s play. Because _someone_ has to care about _his_ life _more_ . More than the thousands or even millions of others. Because he has spent his entire life shedding bits and pieces of himself, giving up everything he dared to dream of, for those thousands and millions. Because _this_ life matters to _you MOST_ . And it should to _them_ , too. And yes, maybe he _would_ want this. But someone has to say _no_ to him _too_ . No more. _Somebody_ has to say _enough_ . He’s done _enough_ . _Been through_ enough. _Given_ enough. Given _up_ enough. Just… enough...

...The green coffee mug slips from your hands and shatters to pieces as you watch the broadcast of the man you love being killed. You leap to the phone, not even knowing who you’re going to call, then slip and fall. The shards slice through your skin, and it doesn’t even hurt. You check out of the hospital against medical advice and call in every favour you’re owed. Take your son with you because, despite perhaps being too young, he needs to be there. You fly to Berlin expecting to bring back the remains of his father, so they can be buried in a place you both picked out years ago. _Many_ years ago. Long before the _first_ time you lost him..

It really all began with a broken cup.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _To my dearest friends, Gnomecat and Nikitasunshine._  
>   
> 
> _Homeland sucks. It really does. But it brought you into my life when I was loosing my mind. I could never have done any of it without you._
> 
>  
> 
> _NS, you're the voice speaking in my head... I know I can write gibberish and you will understand and find a way for it to make sense._  
>  GC, you're one of the most beautiful souls I've ever met. You make me softer when I am angry. And you write things that always make me smile. That, and the fact that we have the 'giant ho-ho'.  
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **The reference to the song, a verse of which is engraved on the inside of Julia's wedding band is[here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsbkk4SZAqA)**


	2. Something About an Image

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this AU Quinn never suffers a stroke. There is a reason I chose to do it this way. I think, seeing a post-stroke Quinn and dealing with it is something we've seen enough. I think, though, it overshadowed many issues that would otherwise need to be dealt with. Like, Carrie and Quinn overcoming him being left with disabilities kind of pushes into the background the fact that, regardless of the stroke, they had issues that prevented them from becoming a couple and having a 'normal' life. I think for two people who are committed to each other a stroke would never be an issue. For two people who don't know how to commit to each other, on the other hand, stroke would never be the only issue.
> 
> For people who read "What was lost" there are lots of similarities in the background story. This is a different universe, but the background story remains the same. It's explored from different angles and told in a different way. I do hope you still enjoy it.

Beginnings are just too many to sort through. They are made of beginnings of their own - those little moments in time that make up your life. And even inside those, you have moments that break your heart or take your breath away. Maybe you know your life is really whole when you can randomly choose any one of those moments and  _ know _ it had to happen, exactly the way it did, precisely  _ when _ it did, or nothing would be the same. And that even the hardest bits - actually,  _ especially _ the hardest bits - had to be there. Because in the end, life is not a box of chocolates. It’s not even a string. It’s a patchwork blanket. Some pieces are stitched together in an odd way. Some are a perfect fit. But whether you look at it whole or just admire a single patch - it’s just beautiful.

  
  


**2018**

 

She turns on the radio and takes a deep breath. Getting to the police station at this hour is a pain in the ass with all the traffic. She missed the last chance to enjoy relatively free roads by… well, about  _ ten minutes _ . She smiles a wide, happy smile.

The phone vibrates and she giggles even before opening the message. Her eyes fall on the contact name and it makes her laugh for real - every time. His name, the one he put in her contacts, is ‘Crazy Badass Motherfucker’ - his favourite of the many she’s ever called him. And what he once had her promise she’d write on his tombstone. A year and a half ago, she thought she was about to. 

-Where are the turkey leftovers?

Oh, fuck. FUCK! She forgot. She knew she forgot something!

She pulls over and starts typing… before she can finish, another message bubble appears.

-Stop freaking out. I can make my own sandwich, you know… (crazy emoji)

She knows. It’s just something she always does. It’s her thing. One of the little things they do for each other. It’s like a pact. And she fucking forgot. She deletes what she was going to send, but before she has a chance to type the new reply…

-Stop it. If it helps... I’ll take it as a compliment (smiling happy blushing emoji that looks a little smug)

She snorts, a numbing warmth spreading all over her from inside out, as the memory of being in his arms just twenty minutes ago floods her thoughts. Yeah, he could always make her forget everything. Sandwich included. Another message breaks through her memories. 

-Found it. Drive safely. 

Yeah, but does he know how to make it? She always uses some sauce on his bread, cuts the vegetables a certain way… this is all so wrong.

-There is sauce in a small jar

-Jules, I know how you make my sandwich

She wouldn’t be surprised. The man has the observation skills of… well, an ex-cia operative.

-Toast the bread a little

She just can’t help it.

-Already on the grill

She smiles. Lets it go.

-Miss you already

-Of course you do

Always a smartass… And then… the usual…

-Miss you more

 

**2003**

The first thing she ever says to him is  _ “Face the wall, hands behind your back”. _ Thinking back, it shouldn’t have surprised her. The first thing  _ he _ ever says to her, slumped against the wall on a bench inside a holding cell, wasted to the point of barely even being able to slur, is  _ “Officer, you’re fucking breathtaking” _ .

It’s not the first nor the last time a detainee gets sassy with her. She’s thinking “ _ best opening line EVER, dumbass” _ , as she takes out her keys and uncuffs him. But he’s still staring at her when she’s done. And, before she knows it, her eyes go from his freed wrists to his face. He’s a wreck - bloodshot eyes, bruised cheekbone, stained forehead… and the hair…  _ God _ , the hair! It doesn’t take her long in the weeks to come to figure out the story of that hair. Or, to be precise, the fact that that hair tends to have a story of its own - for every day, occasion and mood. But that night it’s just all over the place. And he just looks at her. Everything about his features is chisel hard, sharp angles, deep shadows, almost warning her away, but then she stops at his eyes… and, as if a ripple just washed over, the angles are smoother, the shadows - gone, and she’s drawn in.

What  _ he _ sees is the image that will follow him into the darkest of places for many years to come. Still contemplating on the positively  _ dumbest fucking thing he’s ever said to a person, let alone a woman _ , he thinks he can be more charming than that. But he just can’t stop staring. Everything around him is shades of grey. The cell is fairly dark. It’s getting more and more blurry as he is about to pass out. It takes all of his will power to stay conscious and to keep his eyes open. Because right there, in the tunnel vision of his intoxicated mind, in the middle of the grey blur, there is a face - vivid colors, dark soft skin, kind black eyes, a hint of a smile, hair loosely pulled back, two silky curling strands of different lengths hanging along her high cheekbones... he fights an urge to touch one of them, run it between his fingers…  _ fuck _ , he’s drunk… She seems to be looking back at him now. But not just  _ at _ him - right  _ into  _ him,  _ through  _ him. For a moment, she smiles. Her eyes soften. He stops breathing.

It’s too late when he realises that it makes him dizzy, as everything around her face just keeps spinning more quickly. He barely has time to bend over before he throws up. On her shoes. Yeah, he can be  _ charming _ , alright…

*

How they go from  _ that _ to waking up in his bed less than two weeks later is a long story. A long story that happened so fast, took over her life with such force, that she will never stop wondering whether he was a tornado, breaking through everything she was and redefining all she ever wanted, or the softest most gentle breeze, soothing and comforting, one that she never wants to stop. It doesn’t take her long to realise that what he  _ really _ is, is  _ both _ .

It’s how he just crashed into her life, stubborn and unstoppable, and then left it up to her to make the last step that brought them both here, into this moment, when she opens her eyes, sees his sleeping face barely an inch from her own, and knows that he got her, all of her, for good. Because two weeks ago they didn’t  even know each other. Then for five days he showed her that he wanted her in his life. Then for eight days he disappeared and she found herself worried sick, looking for him and beating herself up for not saying ‘yes’. And now she’s here, her head cradled in the fold of his shoulder, his arms locked around her in a tight circle like they have been the whole night, her leg laced between his, and the first thing that goes through her mind is that she misses him. And can’t wait for him to wake up.

She doesn’t know his last name. She’s not even sure  _ John _ is his real  _ first  _ name. She doesn’t know anything about him. Except what he does. Which is weird. Because what he does is, probably, something he’s not supposed to just say to people. But he did. The first time he took her hand. 

Part of it she had already known, anyway. Seeing him fight in that bar, she figured - special forces. Later on, when he and his buddies were hauled away from the holding cell in the middle of the night by a man who got out of a car, handed in papers ordering their release on the spot, she figured - a government job. A dangerous job.

She was standing next to his apartment door, eighth night in a row, waiting and wondering if he was ever coming home, and whether or not if something had happened to him would she ever know, when the elevator doors opened and he stepped out. How she found out where he lived (or more to the point - how he chose to  _ show  _ her where he lived) is  _ another  _ long story. But the bottom line is… She knew nothing about him when he came home - dirty, dust in his greasy hair, lips so dry they were cracked, dark circles around those blue eyes that looked pale and empty, exhausted and with a rifle bag on his shoulder. But she burst into tears at the sight of him just being home, being back, being safe. 

And that’s when she knew. 

...Because, really, knowing someone’s real name is not what makes you grab a fistful of his dirty shirt and yank him in for a kiss so desperate and so frantic that it makes both your heads spin…

Thinking about it, while she watches him sleep, makes her miss him even more. Also, it’s the first and the last time that she’ll ever be under illusion that he’s actually sleeping when she’s staring at him.

“Stop it,” he grumbles, without opening his eyes, but the corners of his lips curve up.

He can’t see it, but her smile lights up the room brighter than the sun outside the window.

“No.”

“Mphhh…” he snorts, and his eyelids make a tiny crack. Her breath literally hitches at the glow of that deep blue through the black eyelashes. Then he closes them again. Takes a deep breath and exhales in frustration. “Juuuules… seriously, fucking  _ stop _ . I hate it.”

“How do you know?”

His eyes open fully now. “How do I know I hate being stared at?”

“Yeah.  _ I’ve _ never stared at you before. Maybe you adore it. You just don’t know it yet.”

He actually thinks about it. Takes his time. His lips move slightly to the side as he considers it. 

“It’s not a bad point,” he says finally. But the sleep is gone. He gets more comfortable by beating the top of his pillow to fold on itself underneath and just looks at her. “Are you always a pain in the ass in the morning?”

She snuggles closer. His arm bends to help her. 

“Fuck if I know. Never felt quite like this in the morning. And, for the record, it’s probably  _ way  _ past 2 PM.”

His grin, when she says it, is borderline smug. But, somehow, a little shy, too. 

“Really?” He’s  _ not _ talking about the time.

She’s twenty four years old. He’s twenty six. Yes, they are not the first ones in each other’s lives. And yes,  _ really,  _ she has  _ never _ felt like this. She doesn’t say anything. Just loses the smile. 

He kisses her, long and tender. Then deeper, cradling her head in the fold of his elbow. Then flips her to her back and is on top of her in a motion so quick that she lets out a short scream. Leans in and kisses her again. Then lifts his head.

“I can make it even better,” a boyish smile is just too silly for this moment. It makes her laugh.

“You really think I am so easy that I’m going to sleep with you on our first morning together?”

“ _ Easy??? _ Really? Just because I barely got a chance to close the fucking door last night?” He grins even wider.

“John…”

“Mmmm?” He reluctantly stops kissing her neck and looks up.

“I think it was your neighbor that closed the _fucking_ _door…_ eventually.”

He laughs so hard he’s a trembling mess on top of her, between her arms.

“Hey… you hungry?”

“What… NOW?” 

“Yeah… well, not  _ now _ -now…” giving her a promising kiss. “But I’m starved.”

“Right. Let’s talk about  _ that… _ ” She frowns and breaks into a smile just as fast. 

*

Fifteen minutes later, she can’t catch her breath. Neither can he. But he drags himself out of bed nevertheless, kicking stuff on the floor out of the way (he lives in a dump, seriously), wrapping a bed sheet around his waist. To her questioning stare, saying something along the lines of  _ ‘Really? Shy?’ _ , he snorts.

“I’m  _ not _ making grilled cheese sandwiches naked.”

“And yet you  _ are _ making  _ grilled cheese sandwiches _ ,” she says, shaking her head. 

“Ok...one - it’s the only thing I know  _ how _ to make. And two - bread and cheese are the only things I have. So… unless you wanna take your ass out of bed and go out for breakfast…”

“Charming…” she laughs. And yet, it kind of is. Just charming. Everything about him. Even the way the bed sheet drags on the floor as he stumbles to the kitchen in the lamest attempt to be a good host in history.

*

“This is actually not bad.” Chewing on a bite, she gives him a nod of approval. Then swallows and snorts a chuckle. “For the worst breakfast in bed  _ ever _ .”

Looking at the slightly charred crust, he can’t really argue. It  _ tastes  _ good, though. 

“Perfected the recipe over the years,” he jokes, leaning closer and swiping a crumble from her chin, “I’ll get better,” he promises then. And it’s so simple, so honest, that she knows he’ll make it or die trying. 

She looks at him long and hard before she knows what to say to that.

“ _ You _ don’t have to,” and she hopes he understands that she means  _ everything  _ about him.

He does, because when he smiles his eyes are a mix of slight embarrassment and joy. He doesn’t really know how to respond. But his eyes tell her - he _will_ _later_.

Taking half of his own sandwich with one huge bite, he cocks his head to the side. “So...Wanna go out later? Stay home?”

It’s really that simple. He wants to know what she likes, what makes her happy. She wants to know the same. Somehow, she has no doubt they will figure this out fast.

“Both,” she smiles. Because it’s the truth. She wants to walk by his side, holding his hand, just wander around and in no particular direction. Then stop and pull him in for a kiss. Just because. But she also wants to stay here, talk, laugh, make out, make love, doze off, wake up… do it all over again.

“Ah…  _ Schrodinger’s _ date,” he smirks. When she doesn’t get it,  he  swallows the bite in his mouth and tells her about Schrodinger’s cat. 

“So… you’re a government-trained assassin who knows about quantum physics…”

“Used to like it. Was actually going to be an engineer at one point. Was hoping… MIT.”

She wants to ask why he didn’t go through with it. What happened. He hadn’t looked sad when he said that. But something stops her. Then she smiles, remembering what he told her in the elevator the day before, holding her hand for the first time. The ballsy unstoppable motherfucker said “... but when we get married I’ll quit…” referring to the CIA.

“So… when you  _ quit _ , when we get  _ married _ , you’ll go back to MIT,” she says, without a hint of a question to her tone, putting her plate on a night stand and sinking back into bed.

He lies down next to her, on his back, turns his head to face her, smiles and waits until she can’t help it anymore and moves closer to kiss him, and then, finding her hand somewhere in between their bodies, brings it up and stuffs her palm under his cheek. “Deal.”

  
  


**2016**

 

Carrie jolts back into a sitting position and jumps to her feet the moment she sees what’s going on. She hears it before she sees it, actually. That’s what wakes her up - every alarm in the room going off. The monitor, the ventilator, the pneumatic compression device on his ankles as the tubing gets kinked. Quinn is awake. And he’s fighting. She grabs the vent tubing before he yanks the tube out of his mouth as he’s trying to sit up. He’s too weak. But his “weak” is most people’s “viciously strong _ ” _ . She presses the call button, fully knowing the alarms are beeping at the nursing station as well. 

“Quinn… QUINN!” She grabs his shoulders and pushes him down. His eyes are wide open,he’s trying to say something and it makes him cough hard, which, in turn, makes his vent beep bloody murder again. “Hey, it’s ok… it’s ok,” she tries a soothing voice, cradling his head between her arms, next to her chest, gently lowering him down. “It’s ok… You’re ok. Just… lie down.”

He relaxes and falls back, tugs on the restraints on his wrists, looks at her for answers. It’s not the first time he’s awake. It’s a vicious cycle at this point. He wakes up - struggling, trying to get up, trying to break free. In the end, the only way to make it stop is to sedate him again. Because he is only able to settle down for short periods of time before the struggle starts all over again.

Carrie leaves one arm on his chest, close to his shoulder, just in case he leaps up again before the staff comes in to sedate him. They don’t want to keep him on a continuous drip anymore. His brain, she’s been told, needs to gradually start grasping reality.

It hasn’t yet. The first time he woke up was over a week ago. He still doesn’t know what she means when she calls him Quinn. He has no idea who she is, who Astrid is, who Saul or Dar are, or who Julia is. He’s like a caged animal, and it breaks her heart. He looks at her, pinned down to the bed by her hand. He’s blinking fast. Her eyes are twinkling with tears, and she averts them fast. He looks just like when…

“You’re ok,” she whispers, still unable to look at him. Her words just flow into the room. Hell if she knows if she’s talking to him or herself. Hell if she knows if she’s talking about him being sick. Hell if she knows if she’s talking about  _ him _ . 

He stops blinking. Just stares at her. His lips are moving around the breathing tube.

“Don’t talk. You can’t.” Her voice is so strained that she can barely keep it  at an audible volume . She blinks her tears away and turns around to face him.

It still requires  a deep breath every time. So she does just that and tells him again. It’s the fifty sixth time. She counts them in her head. Fifty sixth time that she tells him her name. That she’s his friend. That he is at the hospital. That he has a breathing tube in his mouth. That he’s going to be ok.  That she won’t leave his side . That his name is Peter Quinn. And that he’s going to be ok… Oh, wait, she already said that… She tries a cheerful smile when she corrects herself. He doesn’t smile back. As the sedative begins to work, he drifts off. 

Carrie watches him go limp, stop resisting. That’s what it takes. Two small syringes and some clear liquid pushed through IV tubing. All it takes to make him stop fighting. It hardly seems enough. For him. But it is. And it breaks her heart. 

She slumps back into her armchair and pulls it closer to his bed. When she reaches for his hand and holds it with both of hers, it feels warm, steady, comforting. Even now. Her eyes wander across the room, never really stopping to take anything in, until the window makes her glance linger and, eventually, stop. For a while she just sits there watching people, cars, buses... Life goes on.  

She’d been told there was some swelling in his brain due to hypoxia. But it went down quicky and his ICP readings have been good since. His head is still shaven where the probe used to be. The whole idea of a drug-induced coma was to keep his brain calm and quiet so the swelling doesn’t increase. They used pentothal for that. And it made her shiver. The same shit they use in lethal injections. 

She thinks about what would have happened if they  _ had  _ woken him up. If Julia hadn’t shown up and bulldozed them into stopping. 

To this day, it makes her go numb inside. She’s seen some angry people, fierce people, fearless people, people determined to die for their cause, people leaping to save others at the cost of their own lives. But  _ never _ like this. She can still see this small woman standing between them and Quinn, telling them she will bury them if they take another step, then telling them  _ how,  _ in detail, and then telling them  _ why _ . It’s the ‘why’ that Carrie will never forget. Astrid was right - Quinn never did anything he didn’t want to. He is the most unstoppable, uncompromising, and stubborn man she has ever met. And then there was this fragile petite woman, standing there and saying she couldn’t give a damn about what he would or wouldn’t want. Because someone had to say “no” to him too. For some reason, Carrie knew that if  _ anyone  _ could, it would be Julia.

She suspected it was Dar Adal who helped her get the information she threatened to leak. Or maybe Astrid. Or both. Regardless it was  _ how _ she said it that stayed with Carrie. She said she didn’t care what happened to her or her son. She said she would hunt them down and take them out one by one, would bury them in their own shit and their own lies. If they took another step. 

She remembers thinking… she only knew one other person who ever fought for the people he loved that hard. 

She’s still angry. She’s relieved, too. The attack has been averted. But at what cost? And at the last minute. Quinn would have wanted to help if he could speak for himself. She knows that. But she also knows Julia was right. Maybe, for once, his life should be put first. If not by him, then by the people who care about him. And she does care. 

Julia will b e here soon . They take turns now. Max has flown in as well. So it’s now Carrie, Astrid, Max and Julia staying here around the clock. Max or Astrid watch Johnny when it’s Julia’s turn.  They  had offered to take him back to the States, but Julia refused. Quinn is going to get better. And when he does, he’s going to meet his son. And his son is going to meet him. Because three weeks ago, she was on a plane to Berlin planning to take his body back home to be buried. You just never know when time will run out and it will be too late. She is not waiting anymore.

Carrie understands that. Johnny is a sweet kid. Quiet and gentle. Smiles a lot. Asks smart questions. Very observant. Very caring. They all enjoy spending time with him. At first it was just for Quinn. Now, they are all in love with the boy. And he gives it back in abundance. The last time Carrie came to Astrid’s, where they are staying, he leaped from the sofa into her arms so hard she almost lost her balance. 

Julia is a little harder to read. Well, after her outburst three weeks ago… she has mixed feelings of respect and wariness about her. And it makes her feel uncomfortable when she catches Julia’s eyes watching her. There is something very familiar in the way she just seems to  _ see  _ her. 

And then… there is that tiny issue of the  _ slap _ …

Julia enters, filling the room with the smell of her perfume, the sound of her voice, and the light of her  smile. She comes through the door with a sense of purpose, already comfortable in this otherwise awkward setting. Within a minute, there is a bag with a neatly packed dinner on Carrie’s lap and a bottle of ice tea. Then there is a tall skinny latte she picked up for her at Starbucks.  _ Then _ there is that peck on Carrie’s cheek that she always  offers.

“How are you?” Julia asks, motioning with her eyes to the coffee. “Drink. It’s still very hot. You look like you need it.”

“Um… thanks. I will.” Carrie averts her eyes, fidgets uncomfortably, then gets up. “I’m good. I think. Tired,” she clarifies, gathering her things.

It really strikes her every time that when Julia comes in, her first question is not how Quinn is, but instead how  _ she _ is. She had less trouble picturing the two of them together when Julia slapped her across the face the first time they met, than she does now when she sees her ‘mothering’ her around. It makes her wonder if Quinn was different back then. Or what’s more, if he  had always been the  same and  she’d just never seen  it. She’s usually good at reading people. Quinn and Julia have her confused. And not in a good way. 

“Why is he tied up again?” that  _ angry  _ Julia again.

Carrie shrugs, lifts her hands palms forward, “Hey,  _ I _ didn’t do it. The nurses did. After he pulled his arterial line out last night and bled all over the place.”

“Yeah, but should he be tied when we’re here?”

“Have you tried  _ restraining _ him when he’s  _ not _ tied? He just woke up and almost pulled his tube out again. And he  _ was _ tied at the time.”

Carrie  _ knows _ what being restrained feels like. But she also knows that sometimes you  _ should _ be restrained and protected from the harm you’re capable of inflicting, mostly upon yourself.

Julia thinks about it. But only for a few seconds. Then walks around the bed and removes the restraints.

“ _ Fine _ ,” Carrie raises a hand again in a gesture that’s both surrendering and warning. “Good  _ luck _ .”

Julia nods and climbs into the armchair, folding her legs underneath her and taking out a book from her bag, “Drive safely. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Carrie purses her lips, rolls her eyes, wants to say something, changes her mind, then heads for the door.

“Bye, Jules. Night.”

She takes the stairs instead of the elevator. The whole way to the parking lot she thinks about Julia. How one woman can take such a hard line, and yet also be so vulnerable and exposed. How she can’t help but like her. How she can’t help but wonder...

 

Julia watches the door close behind Carrie. She likes her. Very much. She’s actually sorry she slapped her. She was so angry and heartbroken at the time, and overwhelmed at having found him alive.

But she can see Carrie so clearly now. Astrid seems to have mixed feelings about her. Julia doesn’t. Carrie is a light. So bright and so vulnerable. She is tough, but insecure. Self absorbed, but trying to do good by everyone. Julia can see how Quinn would want to protect that light, put his hands around it to shield it from being extinguished by the storm around them, but with enough space to not deprive it of oxygen, to watch over it and yet let it find its own way. Carrie might not know it, but he has always been this way. He’d keep you grounded, but he’d let you shine. Carrie is very smart. But not very wise. She is very caring. But her attention wanders. She can’t  _ really _ be tethered. Only kept out of harm’s way. She loves Quinn. But not the way she thinks she should. She would give her life for him in a heartbeat. And she wants to be able to give him more. She really does. But love is irrational like that. You just can’t force it. No matter how much you want to.

Julia and Astrid agree on one thing: when you love someone, when you really want them to be happy, it’s really not a question of whether or not it’s with you. 

Julia didn’t come here to win him back. She didn’t even know he was still alive. And all she wants now is for him to get better. And to be a part of his son’s life. The way he was supposed to be.  The way he wanted to be. Because she  _ never _ wants to feel again that it’s too late.

She loves him. She never stopped. It changed, in many ways. She knows he still loves  _ her _ . But not the way he loves Carrie. And it’s ok. Really. As long as he lives, has time… it’s ok.

 

*

 

Quinn wakes up when it’s almost midnight. It’s the same thing all over again. Except now his hands are free. And they go straight for the breathing tube.

Julia leaps from her seat and grabs his wrists with every bit of strength she’s got. She knows she's not a match for him, even in his state. He feels it too. He doesn’t know who she is, but he knows that he can break free, so he pulls hard, yanks her in, the rail of the bed hitting her hard in the stomach. It hurts, but it just makes her even more determined. 

He’s  _ much _ stronger than she is. But what he doesn’t know, what he doesn’t  _ remember _ , is that he was the one who taught her how to fight. He was the one who once told her that it should never be about strength, but about the right timing. And the momentum. The stronger your opponent is, the better your chances to use their own strength against them. You just need to feel the right moment.

She holds onto his wrists and watches him thrust and try to shake her off. Then, she knows when the right moment comes. She uses the momentum of his own movement to push his arms down across his chest, in a holding position, each arm to the opposite side of his body. She bears down on his wrists then, pinning them against the bed. He was the one who showed her that freeing yourself from this position is extremely difficult. He tries. But she bears down harder and holds him still.

“Hey… HEY!” there is no point calling him by his name - he doesn’t know it. So she just waits for him to look at her, wide-eyed. “You’re in the hospital. You’ve been injured. Do you understand me?” 

It takes a while. He’s looking around, just moving his eyes, then looks back at her. Blinks once. A slight nod, too. 

“Good. My name is Julia. You don’t remember me. And it’s ok. It’ll come back. It’s just temporary. You understand that?” 

He blinks again. She feels him relax a bit, but she doesn’t loosen her grip. Her eyes are still burrowing into his. 

“Your name is Peter Quinn.” 

She waits for him to nod, for his arms to relax. His expression is less furrowed now. 

“I want to show you something. But I need to use my hand. Can I use my hand without you trying to pull the tube again?” 

He seems to think about it. Considers it. He’s not one to break his word. And he  _ does _ want the damn tube out. 

The colors of room are shades of grey. His vision is blurry. He can understand what she’s saying, but it only registers in a very faint and fleeting manner. His mind doesn’t seem to obey when he wills it to concentrate and focus. And it annoys the shit out of him. 

In a surrounding of smudged reality he sees a face, so vivid and clear. She is right in the middle - of the room, of the ceiling, of his thoughts. Her face is furrowed, staring him down. But her dark eyes are so soft and kind. He’s pulled into them, into this image. It’s soothing and familiar in a way that he can’t explain. He feels like holding onto it. And it’s more than that. He feels like he  _ had _ been holding onto it. For a long time. 

He blinks hard and shakes his arms gently under her grip. Lets her know it’s ok for her to let go. His head falls back on the pillow and the image is gone. 

Julia pushes her weight off of him and stands up. The place where the rail wedged into her is throbbing with pain. She swallows tears and takes a deep breath. 

“This tube,” she says, as she carefully frees one hand and reaches towards his face, touching the tube. “Does it bother you?” 

He blinks harder, squeezing his eyes. 

She touches his cheek, strokes it. “I know. But you see… this tube helps your breathing. They tried taking it out two days ago, but you couldn’t breathe well enough on your own.” 

She can see he’s getting restless again. It’s part of the long term effects of massive sarin exposure. It will pass, she reminds herself, then strokes his hair. 

“The reason you can’t remember how you got here or what happened to you is the same reason you can’t breathe very well on your own. But it  _ will _ pass. Peter, do you understand? It will pass. In a couple of days, maybe weeks. It’s just a temporary thing.” 

He doesn’t nod, or blink, but he doesn’t fight her either. Just looks at her. 

“This tube,” she continues, “it has a balloon on it. If you pull it out, it can damage your vocal cords. And you might have problems later on, talking and breathing. Permanently. I know it must feel like shit. But you have to keep it in for now. Ok?” 

He turns his head to the side then, motions with his eyes to the bed rail pressed against her. Then looks back at her. 

“I don’t understand.” She tries to smile. 

He moves a finger under her hand, and she understands he wants to show her something. 

“You won’t pull the tube?” 

He shakes his head, blinks several times. 

“Ok,” and she sets him free, but just one hand. 

He grabs the rail where it’s connected to her body, shakes it, pushes her away from it. Then pulls on her sweater, asking her to look at him. He’s trying to say something. 

“You can’t talk. The tube. You can’t talk with it.” Her voice is softer. 

He nods, acknowledging that he knows he can’t talk. But his lips keep moving, his hand keeps pushing her away from the rail. She thinks she knows what he’s trying to say. 

“Sorry? Are you saying you’re sorry?” 

He blinks. Julia lowers the rail and sits on his bed, taking his hand into hers. 

“For the record, you  _ hate _ it when people say they are sorry,” she says, giving him a smile. 

He looks puzzled and actually manages to tilt his head to the side a little. 

“It’s from a book you used to like. A quote…  _ ‘Love means never having to say you’re sorry’ _ . You used to drive me nuts with it.” 

What happens next makes her gasp, as his eyes narrow, tiny crinkles forming in their corners, his entire face relaxing in the faintest of smiles. 

Then he nods again. And his hand tightens around hers. He still doesn’t remember her. Or himself. But he’s done fighting. For now.

The nurse and the resident on call come in. They have the sedative on the ready. The room is calm and quiet. They look surprised.

“He’s ok.” Julia gives them a reassuring smile.

Quinn nods as well, confirming, showing them his free hands - one still holding Julia’s.

“Oooookay,” the nurse smiles back and stuffs the syringes into her breast pocket. Just in case. For later. 

They both leave. 

Julia looks at Quinn and winks. He winks back. 

“I think it’s the midazolam,” she says, suddenly. And he raises one eyebrow in a wordless question. “It’s the sedative they’ve been giving you. I think it worsens your amnesia. I’ve been reading on it… a little.”

He doesn’t nod or blink, but she can read his lips now. “Thank you.”

“You can thank me by behaving yourself, you crazy badass motherfucker,” she laughs, relieved and moved both.

He shrugs. They both know he probably won’t. It’s not really up to him. 

“You good for now? Going to get some sleep?” She settles back into the armchair and picks up her book from the floor.

He thinks about it. Shrugs a ‘maybe’. Lets go of her hand and just looks around. 

  
  


About half an hour later she hears a weird sound and looks up. He’s scratching the mattress to get her attention. 

“Hey,” she smiles, “what’s up?”

His eyes are fixed on her book. She lifts it.

“This? The book?”

A nod.

She flips to the cover. “The Woods. Harlan Coben. It’s a thriller. He’s good.”

Another nod.

Her smile is teasing. “Bored out your fucking mind?”

He huffs and the vent beeps again. Then rolls his eyes, getting agitated again.

“Wanna read?”

He nods several times and blinks hard. 

He was the one who hooked her on reading. She remembers him telling her how it used to calm him down when he was a child. Then she remembers why, and her heart is a trembling mess inside her chest. He had survived the worst in people. So many times. And he was still the most loving and beautiful soul she has ever met.

She turns her chair so she can hold the book for him and read it at the same time. Then flips to the beginning.

He shakes his head, tugging at her bookmark.

“Seriously? You wanna read from where  _ I _ left off?”

Nods. Tries to open the book with the bookmark.

“Well, tough tomatoes.” She pushes his hand away and holds the first page open.

When he huffs again, she looks at him. She knows this expression - a mix of frustration, admiration, and surprise at having her out-stubborn him. With a tad of sweetness that comes with  actually enjoying having surrendered.

They read together from the beginning. He used to read faster than she did. He would always wait for her to finish the page. Now she has to wait for him. He touches her hand when it’s ok to turn the page. Until she realises he hasn’t done it in a long while. She looks up to see his head slumped to the side, his eyes closed, his hand resting on his chest. He’s asleep. 

She smiles and closes the book, putting the bookmark where  _ he _ left off. Then places the book under his hand.   Block out  the tube and the monitor wires, and it’s the image of him that she loves the most, remembers so vividly - falling asleep with a book dropped on his chest.

She crawls back into the chair and drifts off as well.

 

*

 

She wakes up to a room full of light. It’s morning. 

Quinn is awake, looking at her. But there is something different now about the way he  stares . 

She rubs her face with both her palms and stretches before getting up. She is all sore - from hitting the rail, from sleeping in such an awkward position . Max  will  be here soon. She should start getting ready to leave . She will talk to the charge nurse about not giving him more midazolam. He seems more tethered now, more coherent. 

She can see the bookmark is now further into the book. Her smile is bright when she gives him an incredulous look.

“You’ve been reading. Did you get any sleep?”

He nods to both.

“Well, keep it. I have another one.”

He’s trying to say something. His lips keep moving voicelessly around the tube. She leans closer but can’t figure it out. He slams his fists against the mattress in frustration. 

“Ok, wait.” She reaches for her bag and takes out her iPad. Opens the keyboard and hands it to him.

The agitation  disappears  as he grabs it. There is something in the way that he looks at her that she can’t quite place.  _ That _ , and the fact that he keeps the screen turned away from her when he types.  She can see he struggles with it. Hits keys and deletes. But in the end he has it and looks at it for a long while before turning the screen towards her.

It reads…

_ “Still fucking breathtaking.” _

She can’t hold a sob as it breaks out. She covers her mouth with her hand, trying to hold it together. But the tears are hard to hide. They stream down her face and she can’t stop. 

Her mouth pressed against her fingers, she muffles, “Johnny…”

He nods. Not smiling. Then he shakes the rail again. She lowers it and sits next to him. 

He types again. It’s a short one this time.

_ “Jules” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ninkitasunshine - you da doc! Can't thank you enough. But will keep trying.
> 
> Gnomecat - finally managed to publish before you stole a look. Can't wait to hear what you think.
> 
> Love you both!!!


	3. What Happened to That Child

**2013**

 

The first time he has the dream, he’s on the plane from Caracas to Miami.

At first, it doesn’t feel like a dream. Mainly because he’s been thinking about it, rewinding and forwarding, as if there was an actual scrolling handle to those ten minutes, as if retracing his steps and understanding what went wrong or whether he could have seen it coming would allow him to change what happened. 

He’s not exactly sure at what point he goes out like a light, defeated by the exhaustion of the past couple of days. He’s in that house again, exiting the study. His mission is over. He looks around  for witnesses  and sees a boy on the floor. Numbness is rippling through his body. He doesn’t even feel his own legs bend as he crouches down. There is no pulse. The boy is dead. The same boy he refused to kill just fifteen minutes ago. He risked his life to get into a highly secured residence. Just to end up killing him anyway. He  barely feels his own fingers brushing against his face. He looks down again. But the boy is gone. Instead it’s Johnny, his son, lying dead there, a pool of blood widening around his body.

He screams. He doesn’t stop screaming until the flight attendant shakes him awake. Everyone is looking at him - some concerned, some with compassion. He swallows hard. He’s shaking. 

He stares straight ahead. He doesn’t deserve the compassion. He refuses the water the flight attendant offers. He doesn’t stop staring dead ahead until the plane lands. He doesn’t sleep on the flight home from Miami either. 

The debriefing is short. He tells it as it was. Every detail, every reason for his decisions. He studies their faces, one by one. His jaws are locked hard. He can feel a muscle on his right cheek twitching, but his eyes are the only things that are really moving. Nobody gives a damn. Seriously. Nobody. They all congratulate him on an outstanding performance, on single-handedly saving the operation. He shakes hands, and as he does, all he can see is his own - his right hand, the one holding the gun. A wave of nausea comes so strong, he feels the blood draining from his face. He needs to leave. Now. He doesn’t even bother forcing a smile. Or a nod, for that matter. He walks out of the room, through the long hallway, and heads outside .

Dar runs after him, calling his name. He never slows his pace. His phone rings. Dar. He doesn’t take it. A text. “Peter, it was a tragedy, a mistake. Call me.” Right.

He barely makes it to his motel room, unlocks the door, slams it shut and falls on the bed facedown. In his dirty clothes, in his shoes, he falls asleep. 

He wakes up from his own screams. In the darkness, even when he’s awake, Johnny is right there, blood on his face, around his mouth. There are other people with him. Blood-soaked, muddy, shot through the head, shot through the heart, blown up… at his hands. They don’t say anything. They just look at him. Somehow he knows what they are all thinking…  _ was it all worth it? _ He sits up and runs his hand through his hair. Was it?

He sits there. His stare is blank, unfocused. He wonders how long a person can go without sleep. Because he is done with sleeping. His personal record is a little over 72 hours. He can probably beat it by a couple more.  _ Fuck _ .

He grabs his car keys from where he  left them on the floor  and heads out. Within a minute, he’s in his car and driving away. North. Home. 

It’s not really a home. It’s a dream of one. A long lost dream.

Two hours later he parks across the street and heads up the stairs. The hallway is dark, but he can’t be bothered with the light. He knows his way  around  here. He lived here. In many ways, a part of him still does. 

In a painful ritual, his finger slides along the right side of the doorframe. He closes his eyes, despite the pitch dark. He feels the indentation in the wood. It’s been painted over. But it’s still there. He lets the tip of his finger slide all the way into it. He takes his time, goes over that day in his head. Lets it wash over him. Then unlocks the door, steps in, and shuts it behind him.

Home is empty. It has been for the past four and a half years. He used all the money he had saved up at the time to buy this place. He comes once or twice a month, usually after a mission, sweeps the floors, dusts the surfaces -  there aren’t many of them. Sleeps on the floor for one night, and leaves. Until the next time. 

The smell is gone. It’s all gone. The furniture. The laughter. The dream. 

The single object  remaining  is a large metal box on the wide window sill. 

The light from outside is enough for him to see the engraving. He doesn’t need to, though. He  carved  it himself, with his old army knife. It reads “CBMJ”. He opens the box and little papers pour out. So many of them - notepad pages, napkins… letters. He opens his backpack and takes out a fresh pile. There are seven, from his last mission and this one. He skims over his own handwriting, looking at them one by one in the pale moonlight coming from the window. Then stuffs them into the box along with the others and slams the lid shut. He traces his finger over the letters. Then covers the box with his palm and stares dead ahead. 

Home… is a tricky business. It’s never empty. The smells are never really gone. The laughter is still here. You just put your hand over the metal box and it all comes back. 

He stays. Stands next to the window. Until it’s morning. Then drives back, showers, shaves, and goes to Langley. 

After meeting with Saul and Fara he drives to Carrie’s. He hasn’t seen her in weeks. They barely exchanged three words since the attack. He tried to talk to her. She shut him out. He figured she needed time to process it. Who doesn’t. 

For some reason, he thinks maybe  _ Carrie  _ would know what to say. Or maybe she’ll know not to say anything. Carrie is the kind of person who gives a damn. He’s not even sure he’ll be able to talk to her about it. After all, he really doesn’t know her that well. She sure as hell doesn’t know shit about  _ him _ . Yet, he would like to think there’s a connection there that she feels as well.   But it doesn’t matter;  Carrie’s not home. 

He finds out why much later in the day. From Saul.

There she is, in a hospital gown, in a room that looks like a fucking prison cell. A nervous, twitching, paranoid wreck. They wrecked her _ after all _ . Was it  _ all  _ worth it? No. But  _ this  _ is.  _ Carrie  _ is.  He’s not sure he can  find the right words to say to her. He’s scared shitless of what they might do to her. He knows he can do nothing, not a damn thing, to save her if she doesn’t back down. He keeps his voice steady, his arguments compelling, rational, and to the point. But she’s too far gone. In her head, the world is full of monsters. Apparently, he’s one of them. 

When people say things that hurt him, things that are so profoundly wrong and completely counter to what he  does and what he stands for , something inside of him shuts down and he doesn’t know how to respond. Or he ends up lashing out and saying things just to hurt back. It always seems to him that he’s as open and as forthcoming with everything he says or does as humanly possible. When people read things into his best intentions that sound like the worst of hidden agendas, his hurt and anger merge together. He looks at Carrie, feeling that helplessness to defend what’s clearly been his best intentions. This is not the Carrie he knows. If there even  _ is _ such a thing as the Carrie he knows. So, he doesn’t say anything in the end. He leaves: angry, lost. Even more than he was when he first came here but, above all, worried about  her . 

Another night of walking around and he shows up at her hearing. When he goes this long without sleep, it usually makes him somewhat edgy. Nothing he can’t control. Which is the only reason the orderly doesn’t lose the hand he puts on his chest to keep him from battling off the people hauling Carrie away. She’s done it now, alright. His blood turns into ice. What does he do now? Threaten Dar? Threaten Saul? Anyone else? This is just so wrong that he doesn’t even know where to start. He’ll talk to Saul. Well, he’ll  _ start _ with talking to Saul. He can’t really do to him what he did to Estes. And it’s not just because he is the acting director of Central Intelligence. He respects him too much to threaten him. In any case, the futility of all this, everything he does or ever did, just keeps staring him in the face. Maybe that’s why the boy he killed becomes his son, over and over. What happened to  _ both  _ of them at his hands was a mistake, a tragedy. And now, facing what’s happening to Carrie, it all seems even more senseless.

Out of all the people in his world, everyone he’s known, helped, worked with, respected… It’s Fara who helps him out of the rabbit hole. He watches her, listens to what she’s saying to the motherfuckers sitting across the table from her, and his heart jolts into an awe. She takes his breath away. Literally. He doesn’t exhale until she’s done talking. Fucking incredible. He thinks about what she’s said, thinks about Carrie, thinks about the dead child, thinks about his life’s work. His blood boils. It has to mean  _ something _ , be  _ worth  _ something. 

As he’s walking out of Saul’s office, down the stairs and to his car, he keeps hearing his own words in his head: ‘ _ We _ did this to her.’ He knows he’s not responsible. Yet it rings true. It’s the exhaustion. It mixes things up in his head. He can’t separate himself from the agency. They’ve both lost their way.

It’s his fuck you to the agency when he threatens an American citizen on American soil. He stands right in front of the man, looks him straight in the eye and practically admits to being the assassin who killed his colleague and his son. There is something very invigorating about the way he holds himself. Finally not shying away from who he really is or what he’s capable of. He knows if the man doesn’t comply, he  _ will _ hurt him. And everything about the way he handles himself shows just how badly. 

By the time he gets home, he can barely stand or see straight. He’s approaching his limit. He will eventually fall asleep and dream again. He’s all alone. Nobody else cares. 

Car keys in his hand, he drops his phone on the bed and heads out. He buys the cheapest bottle of whiskey they have at the closest open grocery store. Leaves it in the brown paper bag. Drinks from the bottle while sitting in the car. Gulps it down, burning alcohol and salty tears in the end. He’s killed a child. A boy. 

He shifts the car into drive and finally does what he has wanted to do  so many times  over the past four and a half years. He drives to Philly again. But to a different place. He’s drunk. Exhausted. Dangerous to others and himself. Too numb to care. Skilled enough to get there safely.

He parks across the small park from Julia’s building, on the same side as her kitchen window. He’s spent many nights parked here, watching her and Johnny. Through Leica military grade binoculars, he can see Julia in the kitchen as close as if he was standing right next to her. 

He can also see Dave. Her old partner. And he can see a wedding band on her hand. She looks tired. Still fucking breathtaking. Dave comes from behind her, his palms slide along her sides, around her, his lips are on her neck. She lifts a hand to his head, smiling. 

The binoculars tremble in his hand. The blood shoots through his throat to his head and pounds hard against the inside of his skull. He needs air. Needs to get out of the car. He does just that and he doesn’t stop walking until his legs can’t carry him anymore. He slumps on a bench and realises his hand is still clasping the whiskey bottle. Might as well. He downs the rest of it. It all becomes blurry soon enough. He falls to the side and blacks out. 

Luckily, when you black out, you don’t dream.

He wakes up cold and with a headache that is begging for a bullet. His first thought is - might as well. It’s morning and the sun is high. But he’s freezing, shaking. He wakes up from someone touching his shoulder. He had fallen asleep on a bench right in front of Julia’s building. And it’s Julia’s hand on his shoulder, not nudging anymore, just stroking. It’s her face in the yellow glow of the morning sun that’s right in front of his. Her eyes are teary and her features flinch in pain at the sight of him. He can only imagine what he must look like. She knows he has nowhere else to go. He’s come to her because she’s the only one who  really  knows him. The way no one else ever has. Probably never will. 

“Jules…” is all he can utter. No voice. Just lips and shaking teeth.

“I know,” she whispers back, touching his face now. “C’mon, get up…” She pushes against his shoulder and forces him into a sitting position. Inspects him quickly. He’s not wounded. Just dirty, unshaven and reeking of alcohol. The bottle goes into the trash can next to the bench. She stands up and waits for him to take her hand. “Let’s go.”

He shakes his head. He can’t. He won’t. 

“Dave…” he starts.

“... is taking Johnny to school,” she completes his sentence. And then adds, “...and is welcome to go fuck himself if he doesn’t understand that I will never leave you out in the cold.”

Jules. He actually smiles, lifting his eyes to her stubborn face. Jules.

“C’mon, Johnny,” she is still waiting for him to take her hand. The one with the wedding band. “Hey, I’ll make coffee…” Her smile is teasing now. The one offer he can never refuse. “Shower, aspirin, coffee, fresh clothes and a normal bed. Well… a normal couch. You sleep it off, then we talk.”

He takes her hand. Before standing up, he brings it to his face and closes his eyes. Then kisses it. She takes him to her home.

He only takes the aspirin, the shower, and Dave’s clothes. Luckily Dave is his height. 

When Julia is done making coffee, she finds him sitting on the bed in Johnny’s room. She’s not even sure he’s  really  looking around. Just staring ahead. 

“Ok, no couch.” She won’t drag him from his son’s room. She puts the coffee on Johnny’s night stand and helps him into the bed. She pulls the blanket over his shoulders, sits next to him and leans in to kiss his cheek. “I’ll come to get you before Johnny gets home. Get some sleep.”

He nods. Then looks at her. 

She would never ask. She never did. There were always things he couldn’t tell her. He knew she wanted to know. But she never made him feel bad for not telling her. That’s why she never asked. 

She’s still sitting there, waiting for him to close his eyes. He doesn’t.

“I killed a kid.”

She used to call them the ‘bad bits’. The times when he’d come home  drained  and broken, lost. He used to need her to hold him. He still does. All those years later, he still does. But he won’t ask. And she won’t  make  him ask. He doesn’t need to. Never did . She knows he thinks he has no right to. But he does. For  _ what _ he does. For what he loses of himself every time he does it. For dying inside, all alone, facing the horrors of what he does, surrounded by people who can’t see that it’s tearing him apart. 

She can’t touch him without letting him see how hard she’s shaking inside. Her hands would tremble and he would know. It takes several deep breaths for her to find the strength of her voice again. Then she looks at him - calm, resolved, confident.

“Scoot over.”

“Fuck, Jules, no…,” he tries. 

“Don’t make me push you. You know I can.” He knows. He taught her how to.

She lies down and wraps her arms around him. He digs his face into her shoulder. And he cries for the first time since the last time she held him. 

He lets the tears run out. 

He falls asleep when they do. 

She is there when he wakes up. In his son's bed. In the arms of the woman who will never turn her back on him. Her eyes are just as close to his as they used to be all those years ago when he’d finally snap out of it. Her hand on his face is just as soft and warm. And, like always, she doesn’t say anything.  He fights an urge to kiss her.  _ She  _ doesn’t. Julia has never hurt a soul in her life. She doesn’t hurt her husband when she kisses him. It’s different. It’s overwhelming and immersive, but it’s different. And he sees then that  _ every  _ time she kissed him at times like this, it was different. It’s her way of telling him he’s made it back. And she is never going anywhere. He’s not alone. 

Nothing has changed. The child is still dead. He is still heading back to his old life. The woman he loves is still married. His son is still lost to him. But he’s not alone. And it takes Julia to show him that it’s just… enough.

They have coffee and chat for a short while. She laughs at his hair, all messed up, even more than usual. Spends a minute using some gel on it to… well,  _ whatever _ can be done with his hair when it gets like this. And, somehow, by the time the coffee is done, he can breathe again. He sees that, married or not, she will never be lost to him. And that, despite it breaking his heart and making him want to break Dave’s neck, he does want her to be happy. 

When they are at the door, she stops him by the elbow. 

“I can’t live  wondering if  you’re broken and alone somewhere. Promise me you’ll call me if there’s no one else. Day or night. Promise me.”

He steps closer and takes her face into his hands. There are no words in all the languages in the world to tell her how grateful he is to her. And  _ for  _ her. She knows him too well for him to lie. He needs to let her go. He can’t keep bringing his mess into her life. He pulls her in and holds her for what he knows is the last time. Then he kisses a “thank you” into her hair and walks away to never come back. 

There are five missed calls from Dar, three from Saul, two voicemails and one text message. ‘Peter, I’m worried about you’. Right. 

He calls Saul. The bank has transferred all the information they have requested. And more. He doesn’t tell Saul how that happened.

 

  
  


**Late 2006**

How she manages it every time is beyond him. Well, not  _ every _ time. Sometimes, when he comes home from a mission she’s on a shift. Sometimes, asleep. Sometimes, on rare occasions, he manages to slip into the building through the window without her noticing. Because she’s  _ always _ glued to the window in the evenings when he’s away. The length of time that he spends away varies. It can be a day, a week, or over a month. When he comes home, he’s not always the same. Sometimes he’s relieved and happy. Sometimes, thrown and shook-up. But if she’s home and sees him coming, she always jumps him. He usually checks the corridors, the stairway, behind the elevator - everywhere and every time. But he never finds her. So, he’s always ready.

In the end, though, he can always hear her running towards him and manages to turn around just in time to catch her as she leaps into his arms. He does now, as well. She crashes into him hard, the momentum throwing them both back, his rifle hitting the doorframe. A quick glance, and he can see a deep indentation it left in the wood. He will need to paint over it. Or they will never get their security deposit back.

It’s late December and he’s frozen. She is wearing her pajamas, and her arms and legs are warm as he picks her up and she wraps them around him. He wants to scold her for hiding outside in this cold, but he can’t. One look at him, just to check and see if he’s in the ‘bad’ or the ‘good’ bits, and she breaks into a smile. Cradling his head in the circle of her slim arms, she kisses his face, all over. He’s laughing, inhaling her scent, the smell of his home. She finds his mouth finally and they kiss for a long time. He smells like dust, like plane, like travels. She smells like dinner, like face cream, like her hair conditioner.

When she pulls away, just enough to look at him, they are both grinning, dissolving into happiness.

“I’ve missed you,” she says, tugging on his hair, tilting his head back and kissing his jaw, then his neck.

He laughs. “I’ve missed you more.”

She lets go of his hair and looks at him. Then cocks her head to the side. There is something different in the way she smiles, almost mischievous.

“No you haven’t.”

His eyebrows furrow. She has never done that before. It’s their thing - she says she misses him, he says he misses her more. That’s it. This is new. 

“Listening.” He lets her know she’s got his attention.

She rubs her nose against his cheek, her breath is hot on his skin. “Well, silly… How can you possibly miss me more, when there are two of us and just one of you?”

Whether it’s because his mind races or because time slows down, the next thing he feels is something flipping and exploding inside his chest. It sends shivering waves throughout his body. When they reach his knees, he barely manages to keep them from buckling. When they reach his eyes, it all goes dark. All except her smiling face. 

“Johnny, breathe…” she laughs, kissing him all over again.

He exhales. The tears come just as fast. 

...That’s what it does to you - it takes your breath away. For real. When you realise you’re not just the happiest man alive anymore, not just a man in love with the most incredible woman in the world, but you’re also about to become a father to the child that you wanted more than anything you ever wanted in your whole life...

He’s been away just a little over two weeks. He’s been away when she… when... He’s been away and… and…

“Hey, c’mere,” she brings his head to rest on her shoulder, his face buried into her neck. She strokes his hair, then presses her lips into his ear. “Happy?”

His hands clasp at her back, pushing her even closer against him, as he breathes a “Jesus, Jules...  _ yes _ ” into her hair.

“Me too.” She smiles next to his ear. “ _ And _ hungry.”

They eye one another again, pulling apart just slightly. Then he nuzzles his face into hers, just breathing, smiling. 

“What’s for dinner?”

“Roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, salad… and me.” She gives him a teasing kiss. 

“I’ll take it.” He kicks the door open and then kicks it shut, carrying her in. “All of it.”

She pulls the strap of his rifle bag from his shoulder and lets it slide to the floor.

“You were about to faint there, weren’t you?” She caresses his face as he stops in the middle of the room, unable to let her down.

_ Fuck yeah. _ “No.”

“You’re so full of it.” She messes up his hair. “You were about to faint and drop me.”

“Ok, I  _ was  _ feeling kinda… dizzy. But I was  _ not _ going to  _ drop you _ .” He locks his arms around her and kisses her. “I would  _ never _ drop you.”

She knows that. 

He sits on the bed and carefully lowers her on top of him. His hand creeps between their bodies to touch her tummy. It’s large enough to cover all of it. She puts her palm on top.

“Can I get pregnant again tomorrow just to see you this happy again?”

He trails kisses along her shoulder. “You won’t need to get pregnant again to see me this happy tomorrow.” Then strokes her long wavy hair. “How you feeling?”

“Better  _ now _ .” Because he’s home, and because morning sickness is called that for a reason. And, so far, her body has been behaving by the book. 

“Ok.” He rubs her back and motions his head to the kitchen. “Let’s go feed you  _ both _ ,” scratching her tummy and kissing her. 

Her face lights up all of a sudden.

“Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait!!!” She jumps off of his lap and sprints away towards a small desk in the corner. “I gotta show you something first. Don’t move.”

He shakes his head, following her with his eyes, wondering how the fuck she manages to make him love her more every time he sees her, then falls back on the bed, throws his arms to the sides, just smiling and staring at the ceiling.

She’s back in less than a minute with an envelope in her hand, jumps on top of him and straddles him, removing some papers and throwing them aside until she finds what she’s looking for.

“Here, look.” She stretches her arm to his face and hands him a black and white sonogram shot. “Meet Crazy Badass Motherfucker Junior.”

He pushes himself up on the elbows and takes the image. He will comment on the name  _ later _ . Fully knowing it won’t help.

“Jules, what the fuck am I looking at?” He’s a government-trained assassin, not a gynecologist.

She leans in, looking at the picture from above, then sticks her finger into a tiny white…  _ something _ … on the black background.

“Here.”

“Huh?” He sits up all the way, securing her on his lap with an arm around her waist. He squints his eyes. “That’s it?”

“Well, six weeks along… what did you expect?”

He does the math in his head. 

“Johnny,” she laughs, lifting his head by the chin and kissing the tip of his nose. “If you’re calculating, go back  _ four weeks _ . And…” Smiling wider, “It’s kinda futile, anyway.”

He laughs. It is. They’ve been working  _ really _ hard.

“I say in the car.”

“I say in the kitchen.”

He recalls both, then shrugs. “Works too.”

“Oh, Stevenson says hi and congratulations.”

He lets go of her waist and leans back on his palms. “You told your  _ sergeant  _ before you told  _ me _ ?”

“No! Well… yeah. Kinda. I vomited on his desk. He took me to the hospital.”

“I see vomiting in your precinct runs in the family,” he laughs. “I’ll call to thank him tomorrow. So, who else did you tell? Your mom?”

“Are you fucking kidding me???”

“Yeah… I can see  _ that _ happening…” Then, imitating her mother’s voice. “ _ That man _ knocked you up!”

_ ‘That man’ _ is Johnny’s name in her devout catholic family. It goes with everything that’s wrong in her life, in her mother’s opinion. Julia doesn’t care. Johnny does. He wants her mother to like him, to trust him. For Julia. 

Julia grabs his shirt and pulls him into her arms again. “Well, ‘that man’  _ did _ .” She kisses him until neither one of them can remember what they were talking about.

Then she holds his face in her palms. “I did tell someone else, though.”

There are tears in his eyes before she has a chance to tell him who she’s talking about.

“Jules…”

“I went yesterday, cleaned a little, put fresh flowers. Left one of  _ those… _ ” she points to the sonogram picture, “for Adele.”

He presses his forehead to hers. “How did they take it?” He smiles, knowing what’s coming. That’s what Julia does. She tells stories about his parents and sister every time she goes to Baltimore. And she goes every time he’s away.

She snuggles closer. “Well, Adele said…  _ ‘About fucking time!!!’ _ . And Braden just kissed my head and said one of his old irish blessings. And  _ Lizzy _ …” She narrows her eyes. Lizzy is always the toughest one for her. Because Lizzy is the hardest on him. “Lizzy said that she’ll take a sabbatical from the university where she’s teaching Aeronautical Engineering to help once the baby is here.”

Lizzy has a different profession every time. They are all extremely cool and prestigious. Because Lizzy was so special,  Julia insists  she could have become anything she put her mind into.

None of it really happened.

Adele, Braiden and Lizzy Quinn are buried in Baltimore. Where they have been for the past fifteen years. Not far from a place that Johnny and Julia picked to be buried themselves, side by side - hopefully many years from now. 

At special moments like this, that he would have wanted to share, she brings them back to life for him. Every single time. She makes him laugh.  Because this is how she loves him, all of him.

He wants a girl. She wants a boy. Something tells him she’ll win. She always does. He holds her closer when he remembers what she said before he left. That if it  _ is _ a girl, they will call her Adele Elizabeth Quinn. And if it’s a boy, they will call him John Braden Quinn. He objected to the ‘John’ part. But she reminded him that he had been Peter Quinn for a while since he’d changed his name. Which is a whole different story. And, she said, sooner or later everyone will call him Peter. Or Quinn, like his buddies in the group already do. And she said she needed a Johnny in her life. For always.

They eat while she sits on his lap. He takes a shower and finds her standing by the window when he comes out. She’s holding a large old metal box and a sonogram picture. He knows what she’s thinking.

He gets his army knife and starts carving letters on the lid. He tries to warn her to stay back but she just cuddles under his arm. She’s not afraid. She knows his hand will never slip when she’s around. He will never hurt her. 

When he’s done they drop the sonogram picture inside. It’s the first of many. In the family picture box. 

They look at the letters.

“ _ Not _ a good name for a baby,” he snorts, as he reads “CBMJ”, which stands… surprisingly… for Crazy Badass Motherfucker Junior.

“Well we won’t call him that  _ all the time _ .”

“Or her…”

“Or her.” She gives him that. But she really knows. It’s a boy. Her Johnny.

 

 

**2014**

Whoever invented the family tree assignments should be put against the wall and shot dead. That’s what Julia is thinking, sitting in her car in front of Johnny’s school building and taking deep breaths. If she goes in now she’ll break someone’s neck.

She got a call about an hour and a half ago. It’s the first time ever. Johnny is a good kid. A straight A student. He’s hard working and obedient. And he’s  _ definitely _ never raised a hand on anyone or anything in his life.

But hey, someone calls you a  _ bastard  _ because your family tree  _ sucks _ , tells you your father is no soldier and your mother is a whore...

She feels her own hands spasm into fists, she smashes the back of her head against the headrest and screams. Then sobs.

The principal told her that Johnny would have beaten the boy to death if they hadn’t torn the two apart. For the life of her she can’t imagine her quiet gentle child pounding someone so hard that it takes two grown men to pull him away. 

All she can think about is the body in the coroner’s office - the man his father had tortured and killed with his bare hands for attacking her. Despite what Johnny’s father did for a living, or maybe  _ because _ of that, he was the most gentle and loving soul she had ever met. It takes a monster to push someone like him over the edge, she knows. 

Kids can be monsters. Sometimes more so than adults. 

In the end all those deep  breaths don’t help. By the time she’s at the principal’s office she’s a volatile raging mess. 

When they leave, they leave for good. She’ll homeschool him if need be. They will figure it all out. That’s what she promises when they are back in the car. He can’t stop shaking. Can’t stop crying and saying he’s sorry, so sorry, he didn’t mean to. He’s curled on top of her in the back seat. His little hands are bruised and  bloody. Her arms are like willow branches around him - soft and pliant, but unbreakable. 

Long after he quiets down and just snuggles into her, his head buried into her shoulder, she still can’t move.

Her phone buzzes once and she picks it up. It’s Stevenson, her captain. And and the only man left in her life who knows. Well, her family knows, too. But Stevenson is the only one who understands, sees a tall it takes on her - on both of them. 

-Want me to come?

He would. And he would probably find a way to cause some damage to the other boy’s family. He’s overprotective like that. To this day she wonders if he knew, when she came out of the morgue and told him that it wasn’t the man who attacked her on the coroner’s table. It was her last gift to Johnny’s father - breaking her oath, lying to the man who loved her like his own daughter. She remembers Stevenson’s face when he just nodded - a little too fast, a little too eager to get her out of there. They never spoke of it again.

One arm still around her son, she types a quick reply.

-We’re good. Heading home. Thanks

It’s who Stevenson has always been to her (and to Johnny’s father) when her own family turned their back on her, on  _ them, _ that makes up her mind. Sometimes blood  _ isn't  _ thicker than water. And Johnny’s father’s life story is a testimony to that.

When Johnny was about three years old she told him that his father had a very dangerous job. That he was a soldier. That he protected people. That he couldn’t stay and raise him because he had to protect  _ them _ , too. And that every time they woke up in the morning safe and sound it was because his father made it so. It’s been enough for a while. 

They get home, she sits him on the sofa, takes a deep breath and says, “There is something very important that we need to talk about.”

He nods and waits for her to continue, but she doesn’t know where to start. The  beginnings always have her stumped.

Fuck it. She gets up and goes to the storage room. This will wreck her, she knows. 

When she’s back, there’s a pile of old photographs in her hands. 

She finds the one she likes the most, and, battling the tears, shows it to Johnny. Between his father’s missions and them leading a penniless existence, it was the only real vacation they’d ever been on. The picture is of both of them on Karlov bridge in Prague. It was late fall, the worst time to travel. But it was the only time they managed. He actually had to tell his boss to go fuck himself before they left. He threatened to create a workers union for black-ops (not to his boss, to  _ her _ ). He could be silly like that.

To this day she doesn’t know where he’d gotten the money. But he’d promised to take her on vacation and so he did. They took a charter plane and stayed in the cheapest hotel, they’d eat the crappy hotel breakfast and barely anything else during the day. But looking at this picture, it seems like they are on the most luxurious romantic trip. She’s looking at the camera, her face is barely visible, half hidden in her heavy scarf and a woolen hat. Her hair used to be long then and it’s blowing in the wind. She’s molded into his side and her smile is what he’d later said was the only drop of sunshine they’d seen that day.  _ His  _ face is barely visible as well, but for a different reason - he’s not looking at the camera, but at  _ her _ . Both arms around her, his forehead is against the top of her head, his eyes are half closed as he looks down, but that blue glow is there, and a deep dimple on his cheek is all that can be seen of  _ his _ smile. 

It’s a fleeting moment in time.  A passing tourist saw a fascinating young couple walking towards him and took their picture on his polaroid camera so they can always remember just how beautiful they are. Julia caught him taking the shot, when Johnny’s father was busy leaning in to kiss her as they strolled across the bridge. Every time she looks at this photograph it’s all there, all they ever were.

She Lets Johnny flip through the other pictures and tells him a story. She looks at his battered knuckles and she wants him to know that he might not have met his father, and he might never will, but that he was born out of love, that he was always wanted, that his father loved him, that he gave up everything he ever dreamt of for the both of them to have a life that he himself might never get to have. She doesn’t know where his father  _ is  _ right now. She doesn’t even know if he’s alive. But she’s grateful, and always will be, for what he had given her, no matter how hard it had been for him. For the life he had fought for, until he couldn’t anymore. And for Johnny. Most of all for Johnny. She wants him to know that no matter how sad both his parents were that they couldn’t raise him together, the little time they were allowed to have each other in this world is something neither one of them would ever regret. And given the chance, even knowing how it ended, they would do it all over again. 

“Your father’s name now is Peter Quinn,” she tells him. “The name he was born with is John Sullivan. He changed it not long before you were born. Peter was a name his sister Lizzy used to call him when she was little. Quinn was the name of the family that had raised him.” She looks through the pictures until she finds the one she needs. “This is your father when he was twelve years old. This is Adele - his mother, Braden - his father (you’re called after him, too), and little Lizzy.”

“My grandparents. And my aunt.” It’s the first hint of a smile that she’s seen since they left the school. His own little family tree.

“Yes,” she kisses his head.

“But they weren’t dad’s real parents?”

“They were. They weren’t his  _ birth _ parents, but they were his real family. And yours.”

He’s thinking about it, holding the picture. 

“Can I meet  _ them _ ?” he asks, finally.

Julia takes a deep breath. “You know how I go to Baltimore every once in a while?” He nods. “A place I go to is a cemetery. Adele, Braden and Lizzy were killed when your father was fourteen years old. I’ve never met them. But if you want…”

She doesn’t get a chance to finish. “I want to. I  _ really  _ want to.”

They go on the same day. It’s late in the evening when they get to Baltimore. Johnny sweeps the dirt from the tombstones and arranges the flowers they got on their way. 

They may not be his  _ real _ family. But Adele Quinn had saved his father’s life in every way a person could and should be saved. She was the only one in his life who had ever fought for  _ him _ . Her bravery and love helped shape the man he had become. She used to tell him that he was all light - to her and everyone else around him. Looking down at her own son’s face, at the stir of wistfulness, grief and longing in his pale blue eyes, Julia agrees with Adele - a mother always knows what her child really is.

 

  
  


**2016**

“Dinner!” Julia comes in from the kitchen to find a familiar  scene \- Johnny, Max and Astrid cuddling on Astrid’s sofa, watching TV.

Johnny grabs the remote and checks the time remaining till the end of the episode. “Seven minutes forty seconds?” He gives her a begging look.

They  _ all _ seem to need seven minutes and forty seconds. She realises she won’t win this battle, laughs and joins them. She sits next to her son and pulls him closer. Then looks at TV.

“Deep Space Nine again?”

“We like it!” 

By ‘like it’ Johnny means Max and himself. The two nerds have really found each other. Astrid’s just in for the ride and enjoying the company. At least, that’s what Julia thinks.

“We do, actually.” Astrid proves her wrong. Julia has noticed that her accent becomes more pronounced when she’s emotional about something. It’s  _ very _ thick now. “It’s so incredible that Dax keeps an oath she’d given in her previous life.”

“It’s a  _ Klingon blood oath _ . You  _ can’t  _ break it.” Johnny jesticulates in a very convincing manner.

“Yes. But she’s not the same person anymore.” Astrid is not really arguing, just clarifying. Mostly to herself. 

“ _ Jadzia _ is not the same person. But  _ Dax _ is.” He doesn’t give up. He knows his Star Trek back and forth. 

Julia rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “He’s watched Deep Space Nine at least three times. And this particular episode… I dunno… a hundred? Give it up, Astrid. Dax is the coolest. Even I know that.”

Johnny leans closer to Astrid and half whispers, “Mom likes Quark.”

It’s Max’s turn to comment . “Yeah, Quark’s cool, too. Takes some getting used to.” He scoops up the last of the popcorn crumbles and throws them into his mouth.

“I think my favourite is Garak, though,” Astrid concludes after a while.

“Duh! He’s a spy. Like you. And Carrie. And my dad.”

Johnny scoffs as he says that. It makes Julia muffle a laugh. He’s picked up some of Carrie’s habits. And sometimes he speaks with a hint of a German accent. The boy is like a sponge. And he’s one happy sponge to be surrounded by the people in his father’s life. He hasn’t met him yet, but he’s heard more stories about him than he probably should have. And he’s loved. And spoiled. And adored. 

His last comment makes Astrid snort. “Your  _ dad _ is  _ no spy _ .”

“He is so!” Johnny knows best.

“He’s more like a spy soldier.”

This makes Johnny roll his eyes. In the same manner that Max does. And pretty much at the same time.

“He’s  _ special ops _ .” Proud. So proud. Doesn’t know half of what it means but his father’s blue eyes shine with pride. 

 

*

 

The dinner is over fast. They’d gone sightseeing and they are all famished. Julia sets three boxes of food aside to take to Carrie when she goes to  change shifts with  her at the hospital.

It’s been two weeks since Quinn was extubated. It was touch and go with his breathing for a while, but he’s off the oxygen now. His memory is not all back yet. The long term comes back faster than the short term. They are all happy about that. And dreading the day he remembers how he ended up in the hospital. 

He doesn’t remember  yet . But he has flashbacks. And night terrors. They are violent. He can be talking one minute and then freeze, start screaming, sweating, battling people off of him. His blood pressure goes through the roof. The week before, he went into pulmonary edema and was almost put back on the vent. 

He can use his hands  again , and his fine motor skills are pretty much back to normal. Probably not good enough to handle a weapon. But enough to read a book on his own. He can move around in bed and take a few steps with almost no help. But he’d been on muscle relaxants and high dose steroids for a short while when he was first brought in. The peripheral neuropathy will take time to go away. And tons of work.

He reads a lot. Mostly keeps quiet. He remembers them all now. He’s different with them all. He lashes out when he’s being babied, the criteria for which being fairly broad. He can’t stand being helped out of bed. He goes ballistic when someone adjusts his food tray.  Throws things and screams when he’s not able to do something on his own. Part of it is the agitation from the brain damage induced by hypoxia. Another part is a residual long term effect of the sarin on the central nervous system. The doctors say both are reversible and self-limiting. But it’ll take time.

Julia never helps him with anything. She tells him if he can’t do it now, then he shouldn’t. He will be able to when he works on it. He doesn’t know what frustrates him more sometimes - Max practically trying to spoon feed him or Julia mercilessly watching him stumble out of bed on his own. But he knows that if he falls, she’ll catch him.

Astrid is sort of the same with him. She kicks his butt a lot and doesn’t take his shit. She also never helps him with anything. He can yell back at her, though. It just makes her laugh and kick his butt harder. Astrid is like that. 

With Carrie, he never tries to do anything he knows he can’t. The moment she enters the room his eyes change in an instant, become brighter, more wistful, more confident. He watches her every move. She’s grown softer, kinder, more centered. They talk much more than they ever used to. But he can’t stand her seeing he’s not capable of doing something. So he thinks carefully before attempting to get out of bed. She seems to notice that. Though she never comments. 

With Max… well, they play chess and barely talk at all. Max thinks now Quinn must be  _ convinced _ that he’s mute. He doesn't know that when Quinn spoke to Julia about all of them just a week ago, he said Max was one of the best and most decent people he’s ever met. Julia figured they will sort it out at some point. For now, Max just beats Quinn at chess. All the time. It seems to suit them just fine.

 

Julia takes her antibiotics and pops some Tylenol while she’s at it. The pain gets worse towards the evening.

She is about ready to go, having kissed Max and Astrid goodnight.  She’s on her way to the guest room where Johnny is supposed to be asleep , but finds him  standing in the doorway in his pajamas, barefoot and rubbing his eye with his fist.

“Back to bed this instant.” She isn’t even trying to sound stern. 

“Are you off to see dad?” He doesn’t budge from the door.

“Yes I am,” she says. “And I’m already late to switch Carrie.”

“Mom.” He barely waits for her to finish the sentence. “We need to talk.”

Oh, boy. This is going to take more than five minutes, she knows. Johnny is a very sweet boy, but very serious, too.The ‘we need to talk’ bit is always a sign. It usually comes after he’s thought things through. And when he gets like that, there is no stopping him - between both of his parents, there’s enough stubbornness in his gene pool to move mountains.

“Ooookay,” giving him a kiss and a nudge towards the guest room. “I’ll just let Carrie know that I’ll be in later. Go ahead. Be right in.”

Carrie replies as soon as Julia sends the message. She tells her to take her time. Quinn’s sleeping.

“So...” Julia kicks off her shoes and climbs on Johnny’s bed, crossing her legs and facing him. “The talk. Shoot.”

“I wanna go see dad. Tonight.”

“I see.” She takes a deep breath, gathering her thoughts.

“I know what you’re going to say,” he fires off, before she gets a chance to respond. “I don’t care. I wanna see him.”

She can’t help a smile. “What  _ am _ I going to say?”

Johnny throws his hands in the air, palms up. “What you  _ always  _ say - that he’s too sick, that he wouldn’t want me to see him like this, that he gets angry sometimes, that his memory is not fine… Mom, I don’t care.”

“Well, what if  _ he _ does?” She tries to be patient. It shreds her heart. The pain is almost physical. “Remember how you were in intensive care with pneumonia three years ago? You didn’t want Joana and Rob to come and see you when you were plugged to all the wires and couldn’t move, on oxygen and meds, a tube in your nose. People feel very…” looking for the right word, “...uncomfortable when they are in the hospital, sick like that. They don’t even want to see their friends sometimes. And your father is… he’s a very strong and brave man. For him to be sick like that, it’s very hard. He doesn’t let people help him.”

“He lets  _ you _ . Carrie told me. He lets you help him and take care of him.”

“It’s different, Johnny. Your father and I know each other very well. We’ve been together for a long time. We’ve had  _ you _ together. He feels more comfortable with me than the others.”

“Then he will be comfortable with  _ me _ , too.” Can’t argue with that. “ _ And _ … Joana and Rob are my  _ classmates _ . Friends, yes. But they are not my  _ family _ . I never wanted  _ you _ gone when I was sick. I hated it when they’d ask you to leave.”

“I know.” She rarely calls him ‘sweetie’ or ‘honey’. Much like his father, Johnny hates being ‘babied’. But she extends her hand and waits for him to take it. “But you understand how hard it might be for your father to see you when he’s like that, right? Johnny, I know you’ve heard all those stories from Carrie and Max and Astrid. And you think you know many things about him. Probably the most important thing is… despite not seeing you when you were growing up, your father loves you with everything he is. You are the most important thing to him in the world, you always were. He wanted to have you more than he wanted anything in his whole life. And it broke his heart so hard when he couldn’t stay and raise you.” She swallowed tears and steadies her voice. “I  _ know _ he wants to see you, and be a part of our lives again. But I also know it’s important to him to be better when he does. To be stronger. For you. It’s just the kind of man he is.”

Johnny seems to consider it. Then he nods.  But when he raises his eyes to meet hers, they have the ‘Johnny’ look that both he and his father share .

“What if he needs me and he can’t say?  _ Because  _ he wants to be strong?”

The tears come so hard and fast that they hurt Julia’s eyes. She lets out a sob and pulls Johnny into her embrace. Quinn doesn’t even know his son is here in Berlin. She hadn’t wanted to upset or unsettle him. And yet, it rings true. The way he asked about him, the only time he did, there was so much yearning in his eyes. 

Johnny digs his face deep into her chest, throwing his arms around her waist. “Mom, I miss him. I want to take care of him too.”

_ You’ve never even met him _ , she wants to say. But she doesn’t. “He misses you more.” She smiles into his hair. Then she pulls him away from herself and cups his face in her palms. “Get dressed. And hurry. Carrie must be really tired and hungry. And put something  warm and  comfortable on. Where’s that navy sweater of yours?”

He jumps off the bed and is ready in military time. She can’t help but smile when he stands before her all dressed, eyes glowing with anticipation, fidgeting impatiently.

Julia climbs down his bed and puts her shoes back on. As soon as she stands up, she feels so dizzy that she almost tips over. It’s the exhaustion, she knows. But her hand is shaking when she takes Johnny’s as they walk out of the room. 

When Astrid sees them at the door, the expression on her face goes from puzzled to concerned. She flips the light switch on and gasps.

“Why are you so pale?” she asks Julia, coming closer.

“Just tired. I’m fine,” Julia tries to smile, but the light makes her feel even worse. It seems to flicker, everything around her growing darker.

Astrid puts an arm around her shoulders and jerks her hand back just as fast. 

“You’re bleeding!” Her fingers are dripping with blood. 

And it’s the last thing Julia sees before her knees buckle and she slumps to the floor.

 


	4. The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If someone figures out why this title has been stuck in my head for this chapter despite never being mentioned... you're welcome to speculate in the comments. But it just seemed fitting.
> 
> So yeah... I don't like explaining medical terms, since it's kind of about the flow of the conversation between professionals or people familiar with the terms... But just in case:
> 
> MVA = Motor Vehicle Accident
> 
> PCA = Patient Controlled Analgesia (a pump or an infusion device with or without constant flow of the anti-pain medication that has a dongle with the button for the patient to administer bolus doses per demand. There is a lock-down period of various lengths, in between which the patient can push the button and nothing would be administered.)

**1977**  

The first time they meet he’s just two hours old. He’s admitted to the NICU, intubated and sedated. He’s a full term baby boy just born to a seventeen-year-old heroin addict. His mother’s family is taking her home for private care - they can afford it. What they _can’t_ afford is a two-hour-old scandal. It doesn’t surprise Adele. It makes her sad. But that’s life.

Adele believes in two things in life: a - there can never be too much coffee, and b - some people should have their fallopian tubes tied the first time around. She’s been in peds critical care her whole life. She’s seen it all. And it never gets easier with the little ones.

Methadone treatment and sedation during the weaning period is experimental at best. Sergey, an old Russian neonatologist and pediatric intensivist, has his own system. He doesn’t write in medical journals. He treats kids with what he knows will work. He always tells her ‘Quinn, I seen it working all the time. We done it all the time where I work in Moscow. This will work here too. One day. Now we do it for our kids. Later they do it for all. Grown up too. You’ll see.’ He has a thick Russian accent. And when he calls her by her last name (and he always does), it comes out ‘Kvin’. Adele believes him. She’s seen the withdrawals before he started using methadone. She is just glad this little fella is in Sergey’s capable hands.

She hums as she plugs in his feeding tube and pushes his first methadone dose. Then she looks down at him.

“A fucked up way to start a life…” She looks for his name on the order sheet. It says ‘Baby John Doe’. “The motherfuckers couldn’t even be bothered to name you, huh?” She puts a hand on his tiny head. The dark hair is soft to the touch. “You’ll be just fine. You’ll see.”

 

*

It’s almost two weeks later when Adele comes to say goodbye to him the night before he’s released to his first foster family.

*

 

Marsha looks at the time and frowns - it’s almost half past 3AM. Adele is not here yet. It’s never easy for her to get away. But she always manages. Marsha looks at the blue mug filled with coffee on top of her nursing station’s counter. It’s cold now. She grabs it, strides into the staff room and pours a fresh one. Adele needs coffee. All the time.

They are not close friends. But they are as close as it gets in here - work friends. Marsha is almost twenty years Adele’s senior. She’s been working in this maternity unit for almost three decades. Seen it all. But not like Adele did. Adele works in the PICU, sometimes does extra shifts in the NICU. Her life is a mosaic of great satisfaction and deep despair. It comes with the job. That’s why she comes here during her spare breaks. Been coming for years now. To see the healthy ones. To hold one. Feed one. Feel a life starting. Not ending.

The sound of the clogs at the door makes Marsha smile. She _always_ manages.

Adele is a mess. Her blonde reddish hair is still tied in a knot behind her head, held by one… two… three ballpoint pens, but still rogue strands hang loose all around her pale face. Her greyish blue eyes are bloodshot. And there is an actual bloodstain on her bicep, right where the short sleeve of her burgundy scrubs ends.

“MVA,” Adele says in a hoarse husky voice. She takes the mug from Marsha’s hands and stuffs her nose into the thick vapor. Then takes a greedy sip. The coffee is perfect. Black and no sugar. Just the way she likes it.

Marsha knows the ‘MVA’ is the answer to the unspoken question in her of why Adele is late.

“How bad?”

“Fucking _bad_.” Adele swears a lot. She told Marsha once that the ‘f’ word is for every situation in life. And she sure is proficient in using it - all forms, some known and some made up.

Adele drags her feet over to the nursing chair and collapses into it. She sips some more from her coffee and says nothing for a while. Then she looks around. There are seven babies in here tonight. Usually there are around ten. Nowadays most spend their nights with their mommies. Except the ones who have none.

Marsha picks up a tightly swaddled baby boy and walks to Adele. She puts him in her arms and pulls up a chair for herself.

“He’s been doin’ better today, all-in-all,” she smiles.

Adele holds him tight against her chest. She can feel his arms and legs moving restlessly inside the folds.

“When was his last methadone?” she asks finally, not happy with how he’s doing _at all_.

“‘Bout an hour ago. They started tapering it down yesterday.”

“Fucking monkeys,” Adele’s face turns dark. She holds the baby tighter. Then takes a bottle of formula and grins when he wraps his tiny mouth around the nipple and starts suckling with all the force he’s got.

“He’s been waiting for you,” Marsha smiles. “Been awake for an hour now. Never cried once.”

Adele nods, deep in thought. He _never_ does.

Marsha leaves and goes back to her shift work. She knows this is Adele’s time to be alone. They’ve been working night shifts in this hospital for what seems like forever now. Adele always comes for the ones that no one else comes for. It’s the half hour she needs to escape from the vents, the infusion pumps, the beeping of the monitors, and the heartbreak. She comes to feed one baby every night she works. She sings to them. Old Irish songs.

“Hey, anyone named him yet?” Adele inquires after about ten minutes of silence. She has the baby on her shoulder now, gently patting his back.

“Yep. John.”  Marsha motions with her head to the name and weight sheet above his crib.

“Fuck me,” Adele shakes her head. “Fucking _creative_. Was probably better off with Baby John Doe.”

Marsha snorts. She’s been thinking the exact same thing since she first heard of it.

“Adele Quinn… meet John Sullivan,” tickling the baby’s back as she passes by.

Adele smiles. She is so exhausted, her smile is real. She holds the baby in front of her face and tilts her head to the side.

“Well, nice to make your acquaintance, Mr John Sullivan.”

He burps. Figures. Always a mind of his own with this one - pat his back in the upright position for twenty minutes - no burping, put him back in his crib or hold him up - there he goes. Always on HIS terms.

“You stubborn little fucker you,” Adele smiles and cradles him back in her arms.

She holds him tight to make the tremors go away. She knows he will be fine in a couple of days. She also knows they will have to say goodbye now. There will be others - there always are. But tonight he is lying in her arms, looking at her. His eyes are baby blue. She always wonders what color their eyes will end up being. And she never finds out. Too little time.

He’s a quiet baby. Happy and content. Doesn’t need much. He likes to be held. And he likes to be sung to. He never sleeps when she sings. Just looks at her, savoring the little time they both have together. She wonders if he knows they will part ways soon. She wonders what family he will go to. Then she starts to sing. It’s the lullaby her own grandmother used to sing to her. She can still remember her thick Irish accent. And with this song she lapses into it every time.

The night is quiet. John’s trembles subside. The lullaby seems to soothe him. Adele has a beautiful singing voice - years of Catholic school choir. Marsha wipes a tear from the corner of her eye.

Adele knows many old Irish songs, some in English and some in Gaelic.

They all sound like prayers.

For Adele - they all truly are.

 

 

 

 **2016**  

Carrie is a bundle of nerves outside Quinn’s room, pacing back and forth. The nurses seem annoyed but say nothing, and this just makes her more agitated. Occasionally, she peeks inside to make sure he’s still sleeping, then looks at his heart rate readings on the huge screen of the central monitor above the nursing station. She sits down in one of the grey leather chairs across the hall. It takes all of fifteen seconds before her foot starts twitching, then tapping, then her fingertips join in, and she realises she’s too restless to stay still. The sound of her own heels against the ceramic tiles of the floor pounds in her head. Everything is too loud, too distracting.

She winces. Distracting from what? She stops for a moment, her eyes moving from side to side, not really looking at or _for_ anything.

Knowing now that it’s going to be alright is just not enough. She should have said something, done something. She shouldn’t have listened. It’s always should have… should have… should have. She scoffs at her own thoughts. One of the nurses lifts her eyes from the book she’s reading, and it makes Carrie both look at her and avert her eyes at the very same moment. As if she’s judging her, can see right through her. She scoffs again, this time while wrapping her arms around herself and turning her back to the nursing station.

The clicking sound of hasty steps coming from the entrance to the unit makes her swing around. Astrid. She almost sighs in relief. Almost, though.

Astrid nods to the nurses with a brief smile, but when her eyes are back on Carrie they are as scalding to Carrie’s mind as hot oil. She has no makeup on, her hair is down and unruly. And yet she looks her usual self - all aces, tall, confident, a little menacing and… well, everything Carrie doesn’t need her to be right now. She feels herself flailing inside, shrinking. But the thing is, with Carrie, when that happens, once she has ‘shrunk’ sufficiently, there’s a void that’s left that can only be filled by all her defenses kicking in at once.

There are so many things she wants to ask but, in the end, she just stops fidgeting, stands as tall as she can, and gets ready.

“You _knew_ ,” Astrid is not really one to beat around the bushes. The way she says it, it doesn’t sound like a question. More of an accusation. “About Julia’s injuries,” she adds, although neither of them needs the clarification.

If Carrie is taken aback, she doesn’t show it. Her head ducks back just a little bit and, with a ‘So?’ expression on her face, she fires a “Yes.”

“I _see_ ,” Astrid tilts her head to the side now. It doesn’t really sound like an ‘I see’, but more along the lines of _‘Oh, so you_ _are_ _just a self-centered bitch after all’_. At least, that’s what it sounds like in _Carrie’s_ head.

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

Astrid crosses her long arms on her chest and just stares Carrie down for a moment before speaking.

“And it never occured to you to _say_ anything? To _anyone_?”

“I was asked _explicitly_ not to. So, _no_ , it _hasn’t_.”

Astrid sighs, her expression conveying amusement over this level of incredulity.  She rolls her eyes as she mutters in German what sounds like a string of curses.

“Listen to you, Carrie… You were _asked…?!_ What are you, a three-year-old? Did you make a _pact?_ The woman is in _surgery_. She’s been walking around with a badly infected surgical wound for _weeks_. She apparently dashed away from the hospital in Philly AMA to jump on a plane and get here. And she’s been taking care of everyone, sleeping _folded_ on that crappy chair... And you _knew_ she was sick _all this time_.”

“Ok, first of all…” Carrie moves one foot forward, her head swings to the side, eyes wide and lips trembling, “I only found out two weeks ago. I was here, and she asked for my help to set up a doctor’s appointment to get the antibiotics. I did what she asked. She asked me not to tell anyone. So I _didn’t_ . It’s a _personal_ matter, n ot my business or anyone else’s .” She steps even closer then. “And second, _speaking_ of _three-year-olds_ , Julia is a grown woman. She knew what she was doing. It was _her_ decision to sleep _folded_ on that chair, to _take care of everyone_ . Not mine. _Or_ yours, for that matter. And yes, she _asked_ me.”

“Yeah, you _said_ .” Astrid huffs in frustration. “And what you _should’ve_ said is _fuck no_ . This is not a field assignment, there is no enemy lurking around, Carrie. We’re at the heart of civilization. Getting a doctor’s appointment to get antibiotics? She should have checked into the hospital, gone through proper channels, had a surgeon look at her stitches, for _fuck’s_ sake! She’s a grown woman, alright. And grown-ups fuck-up too, you know. That’s why we have _people_ in our lives, _friends_ , to take care of us. You should have done something, talk to one of us, talk to Peter…,” pointing to Quinn’s room, “... _he_ would’ve _never_ allowed her to do that to herself.”

“ _Peter_ was the _last_ person she wanted to know! Because _Peter_ is the reason she’s here in the first place. She hasn’t even told _Peter_ that his _son_ is here. It’s _their_ business. I don’t see _you_ running to tell him that Johnny is downstairs with Max waiting for his mother to get out of surgery. Not so _grown-up_ after all?”

“Jesus, Carrie!” That incredulous expression takes over again. “It’s just all one big mess in that head of yours, isn’t it? What do Peter and Johnny have to do with telling a friend she needs better medical care? Forcing her if need be?

“It’s about respecting someone’s wishes. She asked me not to tell you… _or_ him. Like she asked _you_ not to tell him about Johnny being here. It’s _her_ decision!”

Carrie’s voice is getting loud, and one of the nurses gives her a warning look. She scoffs, wraps her arms around herself again, looks to the other side, then realises she appears more vulnerable like this. Her eyes snap back to meet Astrid’s.

Astrid lowers her voice to a hiss, which brings so much more disdain to what she’s saying. “Like it was Peter’s decision to bleed to death in that garage? Because he _asked_ you not to take him to the hospital? So you got some antibiotics for him, some bandages… and left him bleeding to death because _he asked you to_!”

Carrie’s breath hitches, the words she was about to throw back choke in her throat. Her whole face quivers and twitches, her nostrils flare, her eyes fill with tears so fast that they suddenly light up, reflecting the fluorescent light.

Astrid retreats and her face softens. Low blow. Such a low blow. Her palm flies to her forehead as her eyebrows raise and her face grimaces with regret.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… fuck, I’m sorry, Carrie.” She wants to say ‘I’m just so tired’, but that would sound like an excuse. A piss poor excuse for hurting a friend like that.

“No, go right ahead.” Carrie’s lips curve down, she throws her hand in the air. “ _Say_ it. I almost killed him. I left him to _die_ . I ran off to save my _own_ ass when the man who risked _his_ for me was bleeding to death. I’m the selfish bitch.”

“You’re not. Carrie, I didn’t mean it like that…”

“Yeah, you did,” Carrie scoffs again. And it’s more bitter than the pitiful expression in her teary eyes. “And you know what? We _all_  left him to die. We _all_ did. Or at least let him go off on a suicide quest.” She burrows her eyes into Astrid’s and there is one word written all over that look - ‘Islamabad’. They both know it.

Astrid fights an urge to object but in the end just nods.

And, somehow, both their minds go back to why they are both here.

“She’ll be fine,” Astrid finds herself muttering.

“Who’ll be fine?”

The voice behind them makes them both swing around. It’s only then that they notice the monitor alarm. Carrie manages to catch a glimpse of the interchanging warnings highlighted in blue: “ECG Leads OFF, SpO2 Probe OFF”. Her gaze shifts to Quinn, standing in the doorway of his unit, leaning heavily against the side of the door frame.

It’s the ‘grown-ups’ test, both women know. Time to face the music.

“Nothing. It’s nothing,” says Astrid, shaking her head, avoiding Carrie’s eyes.

He doesn’t buy it, looks at Carrie. He’s getting increasingly agitated, his blue eyes more of a pale grey, ruptured open, demanding answers.

“Quinn…” she starts, trying to approach him.

He shakes her hand off of his arm violently. “What?” It comes out too hard, too brusque, too loud.

Carrie withdraws her hand, looks at him for a while that seems to last forever. There’s a remorse in his eyes the moment he snaps.

But it’s too late. It’s not enough anymore.

The same way that making new _friends_ is not enough to make up for   the feelings of guilt she’s been carrying about the people she’s let down in the past .  Just as how seeing him, talking to him every day, is not enough to erase the image of his lifeless body in that gas chamber from her dreams. Just as knowing that Julia’s going to be alright is not enough to make her feel less shitty about the fact that her best intentions have yet again led her to fail someone who loves her. It’s not enough… nothing can be enough. It’s not enough that she cares about him... she ends up hurting him, one way or another, time after time. And he keeps following her, despite all that, or maybe _because_ of all that. She really can’t tell anymore.

He should _stop_ . She should _make_ him stop.

She looks at Astrid. Then starts laughing. She doesn’t even know why, but it’s just so ludicrous. Everything is so funny. She can laugh, right? Just laugh, just because. She’s the crazy person. She’s the crazy bitch who never knows how or when to do the right thing, huh?

So, here goes nothing. She shakes her head at Astrid and shifts her gaze to Quinn. He’s still staring her down. Fine. _Fine!_

“Well, here’s the thing,” she says, tilting her head to the side. She goes numb all over, knowing this is it. And _knowing_ it _has_ to be. “Since we’re all being _adults and grown-ups_ here… Get this - Julia is in surgery. She almost bled to death. When she saw you being gassed on TV, she dropped a coffee mug and fell on the shards. They had to be surgically removed, but she never stayed for follow up and the stitches got infected. She jumped on a plane and flew _alllll_ the way here because she thought you were dead. She thought she was going to have to bury the father of her child . She’s been in pain, sleeping here all those nights… taking care of you. Because...” she lets out a bitter snort. “...you’re just two of a kind, aren’t you? You just n ever know when to stop. And “lucky” enough to have _friends_ like _me_ , who somehow _never_ manage to stop you from getting hurt. Who always manage to cause you _more_ pain. ” She starts to walk away, but turns around. Quinn’s face is a trembling, twitching, sunken image of shock and anguish. _Right, that’s what I do to you. I hurt you. I always hurt you. I hope you remember this the next time I ask you for help. I hope it’s enough to keep you safe. From me._ She draws a deep breath and drives the stake all the way in. “And _by the way_ , your _son_ , Johnny, has been here since _day one_. You might want to check on him. He’s probably scared shitless. You’ll find him downstairs with Max.”

She walks away, crying. Voiceless, helpless, genuine, for fucking real. She exits the unit, her heels clicking defiantly on the floor. She’s sure she’s done it. She’s driven him away. Away from herself. Away from her missions. Away from her repeatedly nearly leading him to his death. She needs him away. She _wants_ him away. She wants him hurt by words. Not sarin. Not bullets. Hurt, but alive.

She walks away and doesn’t looks back.

Astrid’s eyes follow Carrie, frozen in horror. She doesn’t move or breathe until she feels Quinn’s hand crashing heavily on her shoulder as he nearly falls over.

“Help me,” he whispers.

She lets him lean on her, swings an arm around his torso, her hand grabbing his other side, pushing him up.

“Take me to the… surgery place. _Please_ ,” he begs. He _begs_. A man who doesn’t even let people adjust his food tray.

“Do you want a wheelchair?”

“Astrid, just take me…” He starts walking, holding on to her.

They walk fast. He’s stumbling but pushing through, gaining speed. Astrid can still hear the click of Carrie's heels as they retreat down the opposite hallway. She wonders if he still hears it too. Or if he _ever_ did.

 

*

 

The first time they meet they should probably have enough time, to be alone, be prepared, be healthy, be happy, be ready. Be able to look into each other’s eyes, smile, not know what to say, or do, and then, slowly, figure it out.  

But in the end the first time they meet is when one of them is a terrified child who needs a parent. And another - has to become one, when he’s least prepared.

Johnny is slumped deep into the plastic chair next to Max. The round white clock on the opposite wall seems to not move… at all. It doesn’t have a seconds hand. What kind of hospital clock is that, anyway, without a seconds hand? Seconds are the smallest parts, he knows. People think that measuring time in bigger blocks is better. But he doesn’t. For him, eighty six thousand and four hundred seconds sounds less time than twenty four hours. Because seconds are smaller, and, somehow, because they are, he knows they will fly faster.

He tries to count the seconds that it takes for the minute hand to move from one marker to the next. He tries to match its rhythm, so his seconds are real, and not too fast or too slow.

It’s when he gets to… he forgets how much… that Max touches his shoulder.

Johnny lifts his eyes to Max’s face only to see him adjust his glasses on his nose bridge and smile down at him. And then gesture with his head, inviting Johnny’s glance to follow.

Johnny’s heart sprints into a gallop so hard and so fast, it feels like it's beating right in his throat. Somehow, he just _knows_ . He spins around. He doesn’t really know what he’s about to see, but somehow he _does_. It’s Astrid. She’s at the other side of the long corridor. She sees him too and waves. Then touches the shoulder of the man walking beside her, pointing in Johnny’s direction.

And that’s when the seconds stop mattering. And the time can be measured in _decades_ for all he cares. Because he’s not even a decade old. And he’s just found his father.

He was only a couple of hours old - too young to remember - when his father tore his arms away from him, leaning in to give him a kiss that seemed to last forever. He left a teardrop on his forehead as he finally forced himself to break away and walk out of his mother’s room, and out of his life, for good.

He’eight and a half years old now- old enough to remember- and he will _never_ forget how his father tore his arm from Astrid’s shoulder and started running back into his life. His legs must be very tired. He could see how hard it was for him. But for some reason it seemed that once he started he couldn’t stop, that he skipped the walking part and went straight to a run. As if once he decided he was going to move, something else took over. And Johnny just knew what it was: gravity. Not like the one the Earth has, but like that other kind, the one between two objects. Because, before he knew it, he was running as well.

He will never forget the strength of his father’s arms, which everyone said was still not the best, when they caught him half leap and lifted him up high - so-so-so high. When his mother is lifting him (and she still does, when she gets happy and silly), she brings his head level with her own, so she can rub her nose against his or just kiss him all over the face. But his father swings him in the air as if he weighs nothing at all, so high that Johnny’s chin rests on top of his head, and he can hold him tight and hide his face in Johnny’s chest.

But mostly, he will never forget the sound his father makes when he just stops. Stands still. Straight and high despite everyone saying he _couldn’t_. It’s not a sob. Not even a moan. It’s like air that just escapes his father’s lungs, kind of what happens when someone exhales after holding their breath for a long-long time. He wonders if it’s possible that his father’s been holding it in for years. And there is something so happy about it that it makes Johnny laugh. Or maybe it's how his father’s breath goes straight through his sweater and tickles his chest.

The arms around him are so strong, but so gentle, too. They unlock just for a moment as his father leans back, letting him slide down a bit, so their faces are close together. Johnny gasps as he feels himself being let go, but it only lasts a second, even less, and he’s held again, against his father’s chest. And as he catches him again, when their eyes meet for the first time, Johnny sees him smile and hears the first thing his father ever says to him.

“I’ve got you.”

And it’s another thing that he will never forget. Because right away he knows: it’s not just for now. It’s for always.

And Johnny also knows that it’s not a dream anymore. And it’s not just because he can actually touch his father’s face like he is right now, laying his palms on both sides. He _knows_ it’s his father, for _real_.

Because… well…

A) Everyone’s been saying how he has his father’s eyes. And it’s true! Same color, same shape, even the same eyelashes! He traces the tip of his finger along the thin lines of the tiny crinkles in the corners of his father’s eyes. Then moves his head to the side to see how far they go. Not far. Ok, he doesn’t have _those_. But he probably will when he gets older. Not a big deal.

B) When he does that, follows the crinkles, his father smiles and even laughs a little. Now, he’s not sure about the laughter, but the smile is also something that everyone says they have in common. And it’s true, too. They both have dimples that just get deeper as their smiles grow wider. He puts his hands over those dimples and watches them become even more pronounced. Yeah, they do have the same smile.

C) His father’s hair is just as soft as he’d always imagined when he looked through the old photographs he had. And it’s just as messy as his mother told him it can get. It’s not spiky now, not like in some of the pictures. It’s actually a little longer than in most of the photos. There’s a patch that’s been shaved off, and even the hairs growing back are in all different directions. He pulls some of the longer strands, pushes them to the side. They just fall as they want... Yep, looks about right. Just like his mom said: a hair with a mood of its own.

D) His father’s chin is supposed to have a small dimple inside of it, too. Johnny doesn’t have one of those. His face, apart from his eyes and smile, is very much like his mother’s. But it’s a mark his father should have. Apparently it’s barely visible, but his mother insisted it was there. So he looks from the side to try and see, and when the light falls on it from just the right angle, yeah, it’s definitely there.

E) His mother always told him that his father is very kind. And it feels like that right away. Because he just stands there, holding Johnny, and lets him touch and inspect his face. And when he smiles at him, Johnny feels like smiling back.

F) Well, “F” is a big one. Just a minute ago he was feeling so scared and lost. Even though Max and Astrid told him the doctor said his mother will be just fine and the surgery won’t take that long. But now he feels safe. Completely safe. And isn’t that what his father does? Make others safe?

G) Ok… maybe enough. Oh, yeah! Strong. His father is freakishly strong. Johnny has his legs wrapped around his waist just in case, because everyone’s been saying how weak he still is, but it’s just not true. And if it _is_ true, than… _wow_ . He must be _really_ strong when he’s all better.

Ok, enough.

When Johnny appears to be done studying and touching every inch of his face, Quinn winks.

“Did I pass?” He doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to say, but it’s happening, the words are coming out of him. And they feel just right.

Johnny nods hard and fast.

“Do we have a verdict?”

It’s only now that Johnny realises that what he says next will be the first thing _he_ ever says to his father. All those years, he’d imagined what that first thing would be. So many times. So many words and ideas that he’d played out in his head. And now it’s not just something he can pick and choose. He needs to answer his father’s question. His mind races back and forth from ‘a’ through ‘g’ and back. But then he stops. Because, really, it’s _all_ of them. He pulls away further, clasping his father’s head in between his hands.

“Yep. You’re perfect.”

His father throws his head back and laughs out loud. It’s such a happy sound, so full of delight and joy. He leans his forehead against Johnny’s for just a moment.

“Thank you.” He doesn’t argue. No one is perfect. But right now, in this very second, he _feels_ perfect.

He leans his face closer and presses his lips near the spot where Johnny’s nose connects to his cheek. And he just stays there. Johnny can feel him breathing. And he can smell him now, too. He smells of something… like cologne maybe? An aftershave? It doesn’t matter. He smells like his father. One of his breaths is cut then. And the one following it, letting the air out, feels too long. And a little too moist as his father’s lips part. There is a sound to it, too. And it _is_ a sob this time. But not like the ones that Johnny has when he cries. It’s very low, a little wheezing. And when his father kisses him again, on the cheek this time, he can feel that his face is wet.

He lets go of his father’s head and settles his arms around his neck. And right then his father’s embrace tightens too. Their faces slide against each other until there is no more space  between them. And Johnny’s head comes to rest against his father’s shoulder.

But then Johnny remembers something. And, as perfect as that moment feels, his head shoots up.

“Is your memory all better now?”

Quinn laughs through tears. “Why, you think I picked up the wrong kid?”

Johnny grins so wide even his dimples shrink.

“No, I’m the right kid.” But just in case. He recites what his mother has told him so many times. His voice and his expression resemble those he has when he goes over his homework. “I’m John Braden Quinn. John is after you, Braden is after your father and Quinn is after your family.”

Quinn wonders how long it takes for the human heart to melt completely. Because his just keeps dissolving.

“You’re my Johnny,” he whispers, as his son’s fingers are wiping his tears.

Suddenly, the adrenaline wears off completely and he feels too weak to stand. He keeps one arm locked around his son’s waist, while his other one reaches for help. His mind quickly goes through all the possible ways he can fall without dropping Johnny.

“Johnny, can you hold onto me harder?” As he turns around, Astrid is already running to grab his hand and put his arm around her shoulders. “Can you help me sit down?” he asks her.

Astrid let it go the first time around, but she can’t help it anymore.

“Peter, I am going to mark this day on my calendar and petition for it to be made a national holiday. When Peter Quinn the almighty asked for help. _Twice_.” She leads him to the chairs, as Max comes to their aid as well.

Quinn squeezes her shoulder. Then looks at Johnny, still in his arms. “What Astrid’s saying is that your dad was being kind of an ass to his friends.”

Johnny laughs. He wants to get down. He doesn’t want to be a burden, but he knows his father won’t let go.

“Peter, there was no ‘kind of’ to it. You’re an ass. A stubborn, grumpy ass.”

“Fair enough,” Quinn settles in the chair and makes sure Johnny is safe on his lap before he releases his grip on his son and grabs Astrid’s hand. He pulls her in for a peck on a cheek. “Thank you. For everything.”

She kisses his forehead and messes his hair. “And that’s why you get away with it. Ok. I’ll head to the cafeteria and get us some food. You boys are good here?”

They all nod.

Quinn remembers something as she starts to leave.

“Astrid, could you…” He doesn’t get to finish.

“Coffee. I know. Black, no sugar.” She rolls her eyes and laughs.

He shrugs and smiles. “Thank you.”

Max starts to move away, wanting to give them some space. Quinn reaches for his hand and yanks him down into the chair right next to his own. They don’t need to say much to each other. It’s all clear.

He leans back and lets the feeling of his son’s body cuddling on top of his chest spread through every fiber of his own. Johnny’s head is right under his chin. And he just can’t stop running his fingers through his soft hair. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to say anything right now, or do anything. There are so many things that he wants to talk to his son about. He has a list in his head. He’s been adding items for years. He has all those letters that he wrote in that large metal box. But it’s not the time.

“Johnny?” he calls softly, gently scratching the boy’s neck.

“Mmmm?” Johnny barely stirs and just holds him tighter.

“Are you comfortable? Warm enough?” He rubs his back. It comes so easy - worrying, feeling responsible, thinking how late it is for his child to be awake, knowing how far he’d go just to get a blanket.

Johnny nods and nuzzles his face deeper between his father’s chin and his neck.

“Do you wanna get some sleep?”

Johnny’s adrenaline wore off as well a while ago. He knows his mother is going to be ok. He’s safe and warm in his father’s arms. And, mostly, this is what he’s been dreaming of doing for so long - falling asleep as his father holds him.

He  murmurs, “You’ll wake me up when mom’s out of surgery?”

“Of course I will.” Quinn smiles and kisses his hair, then covers his head with his palm.

Johnny nods again, his eyelashes tickling Quinn’s neck and making him laugh.

Minutes flow by and he starts to wonder if his son is asleep. He doesn’t wonder for long.

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve missed you.” He’s waiting. It’s the last sign.  A, b, c, d, e… What letter did he get to? He doesn’t remember anymore and is too tired to do it all over again. But he knows that his father has to say it the way he always did with his mother.

Quinn doesn’t know he’s being tested. But he knows the answer. He’s known it every day since the last time he held his child in his arms. He turns his head just slightly so that his cheek is on top of his son’s head. When he sighs, the feeling of Johnny’s weight on his chest as it rises and falls sends waves of serenity and peace through every cell of his body.

“I’ve missed you more.”

Johnny grins wider. Because it _is_  the right answer.

His eyelids grow so heavy that he can barely keep them open anymore.

His father’s heartbeat is slow and steady now, right next to Johnny’s ear. It’s like seconds… Except it doesn’t measure time. But life. His _father’s_ life. Johnny feels himself smiling, snuggling even closer. When his mother told him why they were flying to Berlin, he _never_ believed it.  

Because, above all those other things, his father is his hero. And the bravest man he’s ever heard of.

Every time his eyes close, he forces them back open.

He means to be quiet, pretending to be asleep. But after awhile, he can feel his father’s chest tremble next to his own, even before actually hearing him laugh. Busted. He wants to say that he just needs a little longer. Because everything is just so perfect.

But his father speaks first.

And Johnny remembers something else his mother told him that his father was really good at: sometimes he could know what she was thinking without her having to tell him.

“Just sleep,” he whispers into Johnny’s hair. “I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

And, because that really _is_ what Johnny needed to hear, his eyes finally close for real.

And right away, his mind is a swirl of bliss and joy.

 

*

 

The first time Julia wakes up after collapsing on the floor in Astrid’s apartment is when the deafening sound of a shrieking siren jolts her back to consciousness. As the ambulance pulls off and gains speed, the gurney she’s lying on squeaks and shakes from side to side, its sudden movement making her cry out in pain.

“Shhh…” The sound is scantily audible, but the hand that touches her head is both steady and comforting.

Julia is strapped to the gurney, lying on her side, something hard pressing against her back. She can’t move her body to look around, so she rolls up her eyes. Astrid gives her a mere hint of a smile, her eyes are moist and overflowing with concern, compassion and a touch of exasperation.‘What the _fuck_ , Jules???’ She doesn’t need to say it out loud. Julia can feel it in the way she grabs her hand and presses it in between her own.

“Johnny…” she tries to lift her head, but Astrid pushes it gently back to the gurney.

“Lie still. There is a tough and quite handsome German man putting pressure on your bleeding wound right behind you. And Johnny is fine. He couldn’t go in the ambulance, so he’s driving to the hospital with Max.”

Julia manages a small nod and squeezes Astrid’s hand in a silent ‘thank you’.

Astrid’s lips quiver, and there is a faint smirk to her smile now. “You know he’ll kills us, right? Peter? He’ll shoot the three of us like dogs for not taking better care of you.”

It’s a lame attempt to cheer her up, and they both know it. But it rings disturbingly true, so they laugh.

But then Astrid’s face grows serious again, and she shakes her head.

“You’re an idiot, you know that, right?” Her tone is harsh and iron hard, but her mouth curves down and her eyes show nothing but apprehension now.

“I just didn’t think it was that serious…”

“Jules… repeat after me… _I’m an idiot_.”

Another chuckle makes Julia wince in pain. Which kind of proves Astrid’s point.

“Fine. _I’m an idiot._ ”

“As long as we’re clear on _that_.”

 

When Julia wakes up the time after that, it feels familiar. There are no sirens, and everything around her is quiet and peaceful. Not _really_ quiet, but the kind you get in the hospital at night. She’s grown used to this sensation over the past five weeks. There is a soft, distant chatter of voices, as well as some beeping. Her back is throbbing. She almost expects to open her eyes and find herself folded on an armchair in Quinn’s room.

Her mind seems to work at too leisurely a pace, a foggy screen making the memories harder to fetch. And the more effort she puts into speeding it up, the harder it gets. In the end, though, she manages to put the events of the evening back in order. She knows she’s not in Quinn’s room. Probably the PACU or a surgical ward.

It’s the latter, but she doesn’t realise it at first. Because as she opens her eyes, in a flash, despite everything she just recalled, she's back in the small apartment in Philly. There’s an armchair right in front of her, so close to her bed that she can touch it.

The man sitting there has a book in one hand and a thermal cup with what she can only assume is ‘black coffee, no sugar’ in the other. He’s wearing a grey pullover pajama top with long sleeves and is covered with one of those cozy hospital-warmer blankets. It’s the only reminder that they are in fact _not_ in Philly, _not_ at home, but still half way across the world. Ok, _that_ , and the fact that the armchair is a different color than their old, beat-up lazy boy and is facing the wrong direction.

But she loves this picture. And she savors the time that he doesn’t see that she’s awake to just look at him. She’ll kick his ass later for not being in his own room. But not yet.

Quinn secures his coffee cup between his right hip and the arm of the chair so he can use the hand to flip a page. His eyes move to the top of the next one. But his lips curve up in the manner that Julia knows so well. She’s busted.

Without tearing his gaze from the book, he grumbles, “Stop staring!” But, as usual, his smile just gets wider.

She knows what he’s waiting for.

“No.”

The short, silent laughter that he lets out leaves him with a content and somewhat playful smile. He sets his book next to his coffee cup and looks down to where the upper edge of the blanket reaches almost to his neck. He carefully pulls the sheet just a tad higher, and his arm slowly slides against the soft fabric until it lies all the way across his body.

The first thing that draws her attention is a tuft of dark hair peeking out from under the blanket against Quinn’s chest. Then a small hand slightly curled around his shoulder.

She draws a sharp breath, just short of a sob, and her eyes are locked with Quinn’s now, pulled into the deep blue of gratitude and delight. His head tilts down and to the side, holding her gaze, his cheek pressed against Johnny’s hair. His arm draws tighter to deepen the half circle around his son, as his other hand softly covers Johnny’s head under his chin. His smile gets that boyish ‘Look what I’ve got’ touch that makes her laugh through tears.

“Beautiful,” she whispers after a long while in which neither one of them speaks.

Quinn reaches for her hand and waits for it to slide into his palm, her slender fingers curling around it.

“Thank you,” he whispers back. And his eyes tell her that it’s not just for what she’s just said, it’s for everything: for being who she is, for taking a leap of faith and loving him like she did all those years ago, for bearing what his life put her through and never giving up on them, for giving him this child, for raising him alone, for making him a part of his son’s life even when he couldn’t be there himself.

Her smile widens and she shakes his hand from side to side, then winks. “If your ass is still around when I’m on my deathbed, make sure that this…” she motions with her eyes to the two loves of her life cuddled together, “... is the last thing I remember.”

Quinn snorts, and it makes Johnny stir in his arms, which earns him a kiss on the head. When he looks back at Julia, his grin is both shy and a little mischievous.

“I can think of _other_ things to bring up.”

He knows he’s losing his tactical edge when, counting on her arms being barely able to reach his hand, he forgets about her legs being dangerously close and gets kicked in the upper arm.

“Ok, _ok!_ ” he laughs.

His smile fades as his glance moves quickly to the medical monitor above her head, his eyes a mix of pain and concern.

“What the fuck, Jules?” he says softly, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb.

She remembers what Astrid drilled into her in the ambulance and figures there’s probably no better way to answer that. “I’m an idiot… apparently.”

“Yeah, you are…” His scornful expression softens, though, as he tries to fight off a smile. “I’m _so_ fucking mad at you.”

“Uh-huh,” she snorts under her breath. “And I’m _so_ fucking scared.”

He huffs in frustration and rolls his eyes, then squeezes her hand. “ _Not_ funny, Jules.”

“It’s _a little_ bit funny.” She waits for his face to break into a full smile and winks. “Told ya.”

Trying to regain his stern expression, he ends up looking like a grumpy child. He scoffs nevertheless: “ _Still_ mad at you.”

“You’ll get over it.”

God, he remembers how annoying she could get, how silly she used to make him feel. And how he could _never_ be mad at her. Even nowadays, when his inclination is to be what Astrid called a ‘stubborn grumpy ass’, Julia is the only one who makes him retreat and feel like shit the moment he lashes out. And she doesn’t even have to say anything. She just gives him a look, much like the one she has now, and he deflates like a punctured balloon.

“I’m fine,” she whispers, more serious now, the tips of her fingers sliding into his palm and giving it a soft tickle. “Stop freaking out.”

“I’m not fr…” he starts, then stops. “Yeah, I am.” He looks at Johnny’s sleepy face hidden under the blanket. “But this is not a bad tranquilizer, actually.”

Julia laughs. “Yeah, he’s very snuggly like that. Always loved being held and cuddled. In the genes, you know...” Her smile is teasing.

Quinn’s grins from ear to ear. “Yeah, it is.”

“You guys will have fun together.” She weaves her fingers through his.

He nods, holding his son even closer. “I think so too.” His eyes turns dreamy, almost foggy. “God, Jules, there are so many things… I don’t even know where to…”

“Hey,” she says, tugging on his hand and waiting for him to look at her. “He needed a parent tonight. And you _were_. And look at you now…”

He still looks unsure. He’s happy, yes. He’s out-of-his-mind, senseless, incandescent, crazy happy. But they both know that dissolving into the bliss of reuniting with a child is not the same as being a father for life. Not the same as knowing when to be strict, when to let go, when to worry, when to say ‘no’, when to let your son make his own mistakes, when to leap to shield him from harm, when to stay back and be a safety net.

Julia seems not to have a worry in the world about it though, and he draws confidence from her reassuring smile.

“You’ll learn together. And I’m not going anywhere.”

His face relaxes and he finally nods.

“You should go back to sleep now.” He picks up his book and takes another sip from his cup of coffee.

“What about you? Aren’t they looking for you upstairs? How long have you been here? And,” gesturing to his coffee, “how many of those did you have?”

He laughs, looking at her worried face. She’s always had this ‘a million questions at once’ way about her when she freaks out. Luckily, with years, he’s gotten very skilled at dealing with that. It goes like this:

“One - I’m fine. It’s almost five in the morning and I’ll sleep when Max switches me at eight. Two - they actually came looking for me _downstairs_. And it was about to end very badly for them, but Astrid did… her thing… and now I have a pass to stay here until Max comes back. Three - since you went into surgery. Astrid helped me get there so I could be with Johnny. Four - really, Jules? Asking about how much coffee I’ve had? It could damage your reputation as the ‘Quinn Expert’. Which I’ve been told is typically pretty solid.”

Julia snorts at the last part, settling her head back onto the pillow. Weirdly enough, she’s not in pain. And her head still feels a little foggy. She tries closing her eyes, but something keeps bothering her as her thoughts wander back to and forth through the evening.

“Oh my god!” Her head shoots up and, forgetting where she is, she almost sits up. “Carrie! Is she here? The food?”

The pain comes back and she cries out, falling back to her side.

She suddenly notices a small device in Quinn’s hand. He pushes its button and the fog in her head becomes thicker by the second.

“Is this my PCA?”

“No, it’s _my_ PCA… _You_ go to sleep and stop jumping around.” His face is weary all of a sudden, his smile forced.

He hasn’t thought of Carrie since the moment she stormed out. Scratch that - she stopped existing the moment she told him about Johnny. But now she’s back. And everything else, all these feelings of peace and joy that seemed to be so solid and real, seems to be tumbling down like a shaky house of cards.

“Have you been pushing the fucking thing like every minute? My head feels like Alice in Wonderland!”

“It has a fifteen-minute lockdown. So…no.” Getting back to just talking again makes his features relax, but not all the way.

“It’s called _Patient_ Controlled Analgesia for a _reason_ , silly.”

Silly. The closest to a real term of endearment they’ve ever used. He feels a familiar warmth spread over his otherwise tense body.

The lopsided smile he manages now is closer to genuine. “I _am_ a patient… kinda.”

She lets it go. His reaction when she mentioned Carrie’s name seems more important than teasing him about his never being able to see her cry, let alone be in pain.

“Is Carrie still here?” she asks.

He looks away, jaw clenched. Then sucks in the front part of his cheeks. “No fucking idea.”

“Hey! Look at me.” When he does, reluctantly, she squints her eyes. “What happened?”

“Nothing. Ok, _not_ nothing.. But it’s... Just… drop it.” The futility of that request hits him the moment he makes it. He can feel his right hand twitch. It’s still holding Julia’s. He moves it away.

“Quinn.” God, he could never figure out when she’d switch to ‘Quinn’ and why. And the fact that it’s the last thing he wants to be called right now, and the last thing he wants to _be_ , just makes him angrier.

“Jules, not now,” he says, looking down at Johnny and hiding his face in his hair, taking a breathful of his smell. It doesn’t help, not as much as he needs it to.

“Why not?”

“Because,” he hisses, not looking at her, his face grimacing in pain. “Because this is… I can’t. Not now. This is like... home. I don’t want to.”

“Johnny, this is _not_ home.” Her tone gets harsher and she hates it. “We’re half a world away from _home_ . In a hospital. Where _Carrie_ brought you after she found you and saved your ass. Where she spends all her free time taking _care_ of you. Where she stays, despite her daughter being back _home_ , because she cares about you. I know it’s complicated between the two of you…”

He cuts her off right there. “You don’t know shit, Jules, alright?” He snaps, then checks himself and reaches for her hand again. His eyes soften the moment he looks at her. “You don’t know the half of it. So just… I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Well, you’re gonna.” She takes his hand, not letting him move away.

He huffs and throws his head back. “Fuck, Jules…”

“Yeah, sucks being you, I know. Talk.”

Reluctantly, grumpily, he does, trying to sum up Carrie's outburst from earlier in the evening. It takes him a while to start, but once he does, feeling Julia’s hand holding his, he lets go and just tells her.

When he’s finished, she raises an eyebrow: “So?”.

Irritated, he gives her an incredulous look and mockingly repeats, “ _So?_ ”

“So, Carrie snapped. She’d just had an argument with Astrid. There’s a lot of tension between the two of them, by the way, so it doesn’t surprise me. And you’re saying you heard them yelling at each other. Carrie was tired, she’d spent the day taking care of you. She told me it was a bad one.”

His mouth moves to the side. It _was_ a bad one. Then he thinks of something she’s said.

“There isn’t any tension between _you_ and Carrie. Or you and Astrid. Why?”

“Why _would_ there be?” she asks, with a truly puzzled expression on her face.

“I dunno… _because_ … you and me.”

Julia laughs, “You think the tension between them is because of that?”

He shrugs, looks away. “I figured… probably.”

“No, silly. Well it _is_ because of you.. But it’s not what you think.”

“How do you know?” he asks, showing genuine interest for a change.

“Because I actually _talk_ to people, you moron. Which is what I’ve been telling you and Carrie to do for… Well, forever now.”

“We talk…” It comes out just as confident as it is true. As in _NOT_. And he knows it.

“No, you _don’t_. You exchange three-word sentences, stare intensely, clench jaws, and ‘leave it alone’.”

“Well, there were more than _three_ words today. Happy?”

“No, I’m not _happy_ ! And you’re not _nearly_ that stupid!” He stares at her, squinting, a silent question written all over his face. Julia sighs. “ Look, here’s what I know and how I see it. And that is based on some of what Carrie has told me, and some of what I had to infer on my own… Carrie feels guilty as hell for pulling you in time after time. She’s afraid she’ll end up getting you killed for real one of these days. You know, she has nightmares about you lying on the floor of that gas chamber. You’ve always been there for her, and she thinks she’s let you down.”

He considers. “Jules, what she said… _how_ she said it.. it didn’t sound like _guilt_.”

“But what if it was? Astrid confronted her about not telling anyone that I was sick, right?” Waiting for him to nod. “It’s not Carrie’s fault, and Astrid shouldn’t have put that on her. I may be an idiot, but I’m not a baby- I can take care of myself. I asked Carrie to keep it between us. And she did. I don’t know what I would’ve done in her place. But the thing is… with Carrie, she’s _always_ trying to do the right thing. And she cares about me a great deal. She was probably worried sick, then Astrid comes and snaps at her like that… I think it just brought back all the feelings of guilt she has about you, what she thinks she does to you, how she thinks it’s because of her that you almost died.”

“Jules, _that_ , right _there_ , is the problem,” he stops her. “It _wasn’t_ because of her. Because not _everything_ is _about_ her. It was _my_ decision to follow the cell to the Syrian border. Mine and my superior's. It had nothing to do with Carrie.”

“Except how you ended _up_ with the cell in the _first_ place…”

“Shit, Jules! Who _told_ you all that???”

“ _Carrie_. And Astrid. And don’t change the subject!”

“Fine. It _was_ a little bit about Carrie.” She gives him a skeptical look and he concedes , “Ok, _a lot_ about Carrie. But still, it was _my_ decision to help her.”

“I _know_ . But she _asked_ you to. And she feels responsible. _I_ would too if I were her.” She waits for him to react but he seems taken aback by the realisation, now feeling profoundly unhappy and concerned . “Ok. Let me start again . Astrid seems to… how do I put it _mildly..._ have _strong opinions_ about Carrie. She says Carrie is self-centered and thinks she’s the center of the universe. Maybe she is. I really don't know her that well. But from what I've seen, the way she's taken care of you... I don't know... I think there's more to Carrie than that. When Astrid and Max told me that you seem to have a _‘thing’_ for her... _”_ makes imaginary quote marks with her fingers, “... it didn’t surprise me one bit. Because I can see how _anyone_ would. She’s a fascinating person. A beautiful, incredibly head-strong and yet fragile woman. And I’m sure there’s more to it that I _don’t_ know. But you _do_ … right?”

“What… have a _‘thing’_ for her?” He can’t help smiling a little.

“Yeah.”

He nods his head slowly in a defeated affirmation: "I do."

“Do you think she feels the same about you?”

“I dunno, Jules… sometimes.”

“But you do know she cares about you, right?”

“Yeah, I think she does.” He’s starting to realize where she’s heading.

“Ok. So, let’s set aside the fact that this _is_ probably worth _talking_ about. But tell me this… Do you think the Carrie you _do_ know, the woman you value enough to feel so strongly about, would just hurt you like that? Out of the blue? Just to cause you pain?”

He lets out the breath he’s been holding. He wants to say ‘yes’. He wants to say ‘no’, too. He wants to say ‘it’s not that simple’, but something tells him that maybe, twisting himself in a knot like this, is as much of a problem as Carrie believing it's all about her.

When did it all become so fucking complicated? He rubs his face with his palm. He’s tired. Exhausted, really. And it’s not just the physical weariness. It’s the constant struggle he’s been in for the past… he doesn’t even know how _many_ years. Fuck if he _ever_ figured out how it started, or _when_.

He looks at Julia. It used to be so simple. The first time around, everything was so clear. His gaze goes to their joined hands. His thumb slides up and down her fingers. For _her,_ it’s _still_ simple. She’s known Carrie for what… about five weeks? And she’s figured out on her own more than the two of them together managed in years. He’s not even sure Carrie _ever_ tried to figure it out. But _he_ certainly has.

And then, because Julia is just _that_ big of a pain in the ass, he feels her stroke his arm and say exactly what he’s thinking.

“What happened to you? What happened to the charming ballsy daring motherfucker who spent five days hanging around in my precinct just to get my phone number?”

 _He died_ , he thinks. And his eyes tear up faster than he realises what’s happening. _He got the phone number of a girl he had a crush on, then he fell in love with her so badly that to this day he can’t look at her without feeling his heart tremble. Then he had the happiest four years of his life with her. Then he wanted to have a family with her. Then he felt his child moving inside her and knew he could literally die of happiness every time. And then his life almost killed them both. And he walked away. And left his heart, and everything he was, behind. And he became cynical, closed up, cautious. And then, one day, he was no more._

“Johnny…” he hears her whisper. And it’s being called ‘Johnny’ that finally breaks him.

He looks at her. Everything he’s been thinking is in his eyes, in his tears.

“You’ve never _really_ changed,” she smiles. And before he can object, she stops him. “And we’re not _lost_ to you. We never _were_ . Carrie is… complicated. I give you _that_ . But she’s also a woman. A person. You’re both at a loss about how you feel about each other. Which is why you should _talk_ . Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it won’t lead anywhere. Maybe it’s love and it still won’t lead anywhere. But you’re not the kind of man who leaves shit like that to just… _be_ . And yet you _have…_ And maybe I’m way off, because I really don’t know that much about how it all happened between the two of you. But I don’t think I am. I think she tried to push you away today _because_ she cares. She doesn’t want you hurt because of her. It’s fucked-up, I know. But it’s kinda nice, too.”

“It didn’t feel…” _Nice_ , he wants to say. But he never finishes. Because what strikes him then and there is that it _still_ doesn’t. Even after realising why Carrie said those things to him the way she did.

“Because it’s _Carrie_ ,” Julia completes his sentence. “She has the best intentions, she wants to make it all about you for once, and she ends up making it all about her in the end. The things _she_ can’t live with, the guilt that’s eating away at _her_ . But, Johnny, you _know_ that about her. And you _know_ she means well. Maybe… this is another thing you two need to figure out… you know? How far you can go on best intentions alone?”

His attempt to smirk warps into a sad smile. “My favourite proverb… _The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”_

“I remember.” She strokes the back of his hand. “And it’s not just a proverb to you, never has been. You live by it. And, ‘thing’ or no ‘thing’, maybe what you need to figure out for _yourself_ is just how far you’re willing to follow someone who might never be able to match her intentions with her actions. Carrie is who she is. She can make you very happy. Or very miserable. She doesn’t have to be like you for it to work. There's a limit to how much people should have to change to make a relationship work. And that’s for _you_ to decide. For _yourself_.”

He nods absentmindedly, deep in thought. He has been trying to figure out just _that_ for… well, a very long time.

“Hey,” Julia scratches his wrist to get his attention. “But right now, Carrie’s out there. Hurt. Thinking you’re better off without her. Thinking she’s pushed you away. And she doesn’t deserve that. Best intentions count, too. Because people put their hearts into them. And Carrie is willing to let you go to keep you safe. She might suck at the execution, but she did that for _you_ . And, whatever this ends up being, you owe her _that_ much. And you owe that to yourself. You two have been through too much to just let her walk away like that. Like I said… it might be nothing. But it might be everything you ever wanted. You both deserve to find out which one it is. Or you both might live to regret never having done that.”

“Fuck, Jules…” He takes a sharp breath and looks away. Then back at her, at her hand, warm and confident, resting in his palm.  His head falls back, but now it's less frustration and more fatigue. His smile is lopsided, but not forced. “I’ll call Carrie.” He sighs and shakes his head. “Not _now_ , if it’s ok with _you_. But I’ll call her today.”

Julia quietly claps her hands, mouths a ‘yay’ and looks like a happy three-year-old.

“God, you’re one smug bulldozer,” he laughs.

“Yeah… yeah… huff all you want. I won.”

He feels himself relaxing again, lapsing back into the sensation of home and belonging that he so desperately wanted to hold on to.

“I’ve missed you,” he says. _I’ve missed talking to you. Being able to say things and not worry about having them used against me. Being shown that I might be wrong and knowing that all you want is for me to see it, find my own way out of it. God, I’ve missed you..._

“Hey, that’s _my_ line!”

“Fine… you go.” He rolls his eyes.

“I’ve missed you.” Her playful smile works wonders, washing away any unease from their conversation.

“I’ve missed you more.” He smiles back. Then punches the PCA button again and looks at her defiantly. “Now back to the wonderland.”

She yawns an “Ok” and nuzzles her face into the pillow.

It’s quiet for a long while.

“Jules, you still awake?”

“Mmm-hmm.” She opens her eyes to find him looking at Johnny, his fingers gently touching his son’s hair.

“I know we’ve done some crazy shit together, you and I… But this…” He kisses Johnny’s head. “ _Nailed_ it!”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To NikitaSunshine... You keep me honest, you stand guard when I grow soft, you make whatever gibberish I write into something that makes sense, you're as uncompromising as Quinn... and I love you just as much. Probably more... if it makes any sense. Ha!
> 
> To Gnomecat and Violiko... you guys are such a great part of my life that I don't remember how it was before I met you. I can never thank you enough for being there day or night for bouncing off ideas or just begging to read something when I feel needy. LOVE.


	5. What Doesn't Kill You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a personal note...
> 
> The story of a baby who was almost starved to death is based on real events and, something that I've witnessed recently. It had a hard impact on me and kind of gave me the idea for the whole 1977 and on timeline.

**1977**

The second time they meet Adele has two fingers digging into his sternum. She counts in her head. The chest compressions on an infant have to be fast and deep. The palm of her other hand is under his tiny body, feeling every bone that sticks out. As she counts, her voice is breaking. She wants to scream, but she needs to keep it together. She’s here with just two residents and an intern. She keeps looking at the door. The attending can’t make it fast enough.

“Another epi,” she says, looking at the huge intraosseous needle sticking out of a tiny leg. Fuckers picked the wrong size again. Damn ER monkeys. Probably broke his shin.

Another epi. Then another one. The ambu bag is puffing, she keeps pushing her fingers into the chest of the baby in the incubator. Third code in the last two hours. Maxed out on inotropes. Barely keeping sats on the vent. Pupils still reactive. She’s been keeping him cooled down. Not dead until warm and dead, she knows. She’s seen it all. The little ones push through. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger- that’s what she always tells the parents, doing her best to be reassuring. Except this time. This time she wants to kill them. And she will. She just knows she will.

“Is this the Sullivan baby?” A man pops his head into the unit. He’s wearing a police uniform. They all turn to him without stopping the CPR. “Umm… sorry. I’ll come back later.”

“Hey… HEY!!!” Adele yells him back. “Did you get the motherfuckers? Are they here?”

The last time she saw him he was over eight pounds- the last number on his weight sheet before social services took him away. She wasn’t working that day. But it wasn’t the first time. She was happy he found a family to go to. He’s just a little over three and a half pounds now. Looks like something from a black and white Holocaust movie. But not like the babies who survived - like the ones in the mass graves, mummified, grey.

“Did you hear what she said???” she keeps yelling at the young policeman. “The baby didn’t cry so it wasn’t hungry???” Her fingers are getting numb, but still she pushes against the little heart. Tears of anger are in her eyes now. She blinks them away and turns to the monitor.

“Quinn… QUINN!” it’s Sergey, the attending. He jolts her shoulder. “Look!”

She can see it now… Between the erratic waves of her chest compressions… well-formed narrow complex ECG waves. She stops and they all wait in silence as the stubborn little heart gains speed. All the epi drives it above two hundred now, but they all let out a sigh of relief.

Adele’s right hand is so numb that it no longer has any feeling. She shakes it, her left arm still under the tiny form in the incubator. She tickles the side of his chest with the tips of her fingers.

“Now, was that so hard?” she smiles through tears, talking to the near-lifeless face of the baby. She checks his pupils. Still reactive. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” she whispers to him, touching a knuckle to his tiny greyish cheek. “Don’t you do that to me again, Johnny. You’ve got to stay now. You hear me?” Everyone leaves to write more orders and get a portable x-ray. She stays. She talks to him as if he can understand what she’s saying. Or see what she’s showing him. “You see all those meds I’ve got for you here?” pointing to a row of infusion pumps with syringes of epi, nor-epi, vasopressin, bicarbonate and hydrocortisone. “You’ve gotta use ‘em. I’ll make more for you. I’ll fucking make as much as you want. Just stick around…”

Sergey stands by her side now. He’s afraid to talk to her. Adele has a temper. He’s told her many times she needs to take it easy. It never helps. He’s never understood how she survived in this unit for over twelve years. Every one of them breaks her heart a little more.

Adele has been married to Braden since way before Sergey knew her. They had been trying to have a baby of their own. No luck. She’s almost thirty five now. The best intensive care nurse Sergey has ever met. And the most fragile heart inside. She weeps for them all like they were all her own.

“Umm… Quinn… They got the father, too,” he says quietly.

Adele’s eyes fly wide open. Her hand slides from underneath little Johnny and, before Sergey can stop her, she’s out the door.

He catches up with her when she’s just through the entrance to the waiting room. It’s full of cops and social workers. He manages to grab her by the wrist, using all his strength to hold her back. She’s screaming, cursing and kicking in the air, flinging her tight fists at two people in cuffs.

“... I’ll fucking kill you!!! I will hunt you down, and I’ll carve your fucking hearts out with my bare hands!!!..”

Sergey holds her while the police haul the foster family away. She roars at the social worker next. Curses at Sergey to let her go. He doesn’t. He wishes he could, though.

 

*

 

Little Johnny continues to fight for his life. It’s been over two weeks. He’s gained weight again. He’s still weak and can barely lift his little hands when he’s finally weaned off sedation. Adele has her family and everyone in her church praying for him. Everyone she’s ever met knows the name Johnny Sullivan. She takes two extra shifts each week, but Braden never says anything. Sometimes he comes to visit the ‘little lad’ too and sings to him when Adele is busy. And he holds his wife when she cries over him. This baby is not the first to take over her life like that. And not the last, he knows. Braden knows what all those babies are to her, what they all mean. He’s a quiet man. But he cries at night sometimes. He knows she loves him. And it kills him that he never managed to give her the one thing she wanted most.

He starts asking around about adopting Johnny. He’s told it’s too complicated right now because of the criminal investigation in place. He prays for the little fighter as well.

It’s almost the end of the shift when Adele sees Johnny’s eyes open. They’ve turned blue for certain since she last saw them. Not baby blue anymore - real, bright, beautiful blue. She can see them following her movements as she replaces his feeding bag. His grip is weak when she lets him hold her finger. But when she tries to move it away, it tightens.

“Ok, I’ll stay.” She smiles and pulls a chair with her other hand.

The breathing tube is still in his mouth as he just looks at her. His whole head fits into her hand. Patches of dark hair have been shaved off to place IV lines. But it’s the most beautiful sight she has seen in a long while.

“You fucking did it,” she leans over and kisses his forehead.

 

Adele goes to testify at the hearing against the foster family who almost starved him to death. She testifies in court, too. The detective in charge of the investigation feels like she’s his own personal shadow. She doesn’t rest until the neglect charges stick.

She goes with the Child Services agent to see his new home, to meet his new family. They seem nice. They have another foster kid in their care. They get temporary custody right away. She considered applying but, like always, she stopped herself. She can’t take them all home. It’s just the job. She knows she needs to let them go at some point.

They say goodbye in the waiting room of the pediatrics department. Johnny is in Adele’s arms now. He’s almost two months old and he’s always smiling now, especially at Adele. He was about six weeks old when he smiled for the first time and it broke her heart. Only babies can be that forgiving. He’s been to hell and back, but his first smile was so peaceful and happy. She said a blessing, wishing for him to never come in harm’s way again. She asked the angels to watch over him for as long as he lived.

The CSA woman is waiting to take him away, but Adele takes her time. She stands by the window and cradles Johnny against her chest. She whispers to him:

“You’ll grow up so strong. I know you will. You’ll be tall and handsome and charming. And smart. Oh, you’ll be so smart. The first in your class. Then college. And you’ll meet a beautiful girl and fall in love with her. And she fucking better love you back just as much.” She sniffs his fluffy black baby hair and presses her lips to the top of his little head. She whispers some more then. “I’ll always remember you, Johnny Sullivan. I’ll pray for you every day.”

He smiles at her as he’s being carried away. She smiles back and waves.

 

*

 

Adele finds out she’s pregnant at an age when most women have already given up on having more children. She’s almost forty years old when she gives birth to her own baby girl - beautiful Elizabeth Quinn. Braden cries every time he holds his little Lizzy in his arms, and Adele holds him when he does. She is so beautiful. Their own little angel. A miracle of her horrors-battered life.

She sings to Lizzy every night, rocking her to sleep. She sings the Irish lullaby to her. The same one her grandmother used to sing.

She thinks of little Johnny. He must be about five years old now. She wonders what he looks like, what his life is like. She wonders who sings him to sleep these days. She keeps him in her prayers. There have been many more before and after him. But she will never forget the night she pressed her fingers against his brave little heart. The night he was strong enough to survive the worst in people. She prays he never meets such evil in his life again.

She watches little Lizzy fall asleep in her crib. She doesn’t know that years from now, her own daughter will bring Johnny back into her life. She prays for them both to always be safe. And loved.

  
  
  


**Late 2007**

The wee hours are the worst. Although, she can never figure out whether it feels lonelier when she’s alone in a crowded bar, or when it slowly empties as she watches people leave: couples, couples-to-be, friends, co-workers. But the wee hours are definitely the worst. And it’s the same in every bar she’s ever been in, on every continent. Why would it be any different in Rome?

She points to her emptying martini glass and shoots a meaningful glance at the bartender. He’s cute. Not too bright, though. Not too _skilled_ , either. A tall handsome Italian man with bad English and even worse jokes. They’ve been flirting on and off through the whole evening. She usually picks a spot at the bar. There’s something quite soothing in watching the bartender do the magic. Some are better than others. This one… sucks. He’s too slow, the drinks are average at best, the olives are… beh (she winces as the sourish taste fills her throat and makes it quiver). Worst bar ever. Ok, maybe not… But it’s climbing the charts by the hour.

So, yeah… the wee hours. She doesn’t mind being alone. There’s a reason she usually ditches her colleagues and goes out on her own. She likes the quiet in her head after a day of being surrounded by people, briefings, debriefings, strategy meetings, just meetings. They always invite her to join (ok, they used to… no one bothers anymore). But she always ends up wandering off on her own, just strolling along the streets, watching people, looking at buildings, knowing that eventually she‘ll stumble into a nice little bar and end up with a martini in her hand. Hoping to meet a tall handsome stranger to not just " _get_ to know" but " _want_ to know" as well. Of course it usually doesn't work out that way: people fascinate her, but they bore her easily, too.

Her next martini is here, accompanied by what can pass as flirting only in Italy  and only at four in the morning. She rewards the clumsy bartender with a polite, dismissive and somewhat irritated smile and averts her eyes just as fast. The drink is not nearly as chilled as it should be. And no, she won’t touch those olives. She digs the skewer out of the glass and drops it contemptuously onto the napkin. Better.

She should probably call it a night after this one. The place is almost empty, the music way too loud. There’s a man sitting next to her, a couple to his right… The tables are almost deserted. And yet she knows she’ll probably stay until the last call.

“Verdammt erbärmlich…” she mutters under her breath as she takes another sip.

The voice right next to her sounds rather amused.

“Not _just_ pathetic? Has to be _fucking_ pathetic?”

She swallows, slowly lowering her glass to the counter and just as slowly turning her head to the right. She’s good with faces. Although, this is the _last_ face she expected to see. _Here_ or _anywhere_.

God, he’s handsome, though. Smirky, confident, yet slightly tentative grin, barely past warm, just shy of a real smile. The same curious and observant look in those blue eyes that captured her gaze in a full conference room no more than three weeks ago. He gives her a small nod and raises his whiskey glass in a sleek greeting gesture. Then empties it in one gulp, sets it down, and glances at the bartender, pointing with his finger for a refill.

She can sense an involuntary smile curling in the corners of her mouth. The crappy establishment is climbing the charts in the opposite direction. Go figure, right?

“So…” Just that. And he stops, looking at her hesitantly, somewhat complacent, but a little cautious too.

“So… hi,” she manages, finally. _Fancy meeting YOU here._ She doesn’t say it out loud.

“I know, right?” And now she wonders. About two things. _Did_ she? Say it out loud that is? And if she did… how drunk _is_ she?

His glass is full again and he takes a small sip.

Ok, it was a whole different story the first time around. Barely three looks during the joint briefing in Barcelona, fifteen minutes of hot and rather delusional sex in the back alley, then parting ways in that courteous but impersonal manner that they both seemed to be all too familiar with. What _was_ his name? Did she _ever_ find out?

“Peter Quinn,” offering his hand.

Ok, the guy is a fucking mind reader.

“Astrid Keller.” She shakes it, and turns halfway towards him.

“Like the winemaker, right?” Referring to her last name.

“Not bad,” she gives him that much. “Ich wusste nicht, dass du Deutsch sprichst.”

He snorts. That’s all. And then she does, too. Yeah, she _didn’t_ know he spoke German. Or _English_ , for that matter. There wasn’t that much talking involved. The _first_ time around.

“Das tue ich. Wahrscheinlich nicht genug, um eine Unterhaltung zu führen.”

She’s impressed. And painfully aware of the fact that her face shows it. And there’s that smug look in his eyes again. His accent is rather solid, pronunciation is great. But if he claims his German is not good enough to carry a conversation, she won’t argue.

“Any other… remarkable skills?” she asks, picking up her martini glass and crossing her legs.

A shy smile. His head, hovering over the glass, turns just enough to meet her eyes. “You mean, other than…”

“Yes, Peter, _other_ than.”

“No, not really,” he laughs into his drink.

“I see. And you’re here…”

“... _not_ by mistake.”

“Oh?” she says, giving a quizzical stare with a touch of… something she’d rather _not_ be there.

“Saw you at the embassy today… figured…”

“... _how about a second date_?”

“That was a _date_?” One raised eyebrow.

“Well…”

“Kind of?”

She elbows him and lets out a drunken snort. “ _Kind of_ . Let’s go with _that_.”

“To second dates…” He raises his glass.

She nods and raises hers. They both drink. There’s a word for it. _Awkward_. And yet, it doesn’t feel quite as awkward as it probably should.

He talks first.

“Listen, I didn’t feel quite… _right…_ to…”

“... leave like you did?”

“Yeah. I mean… It was…”

“... great. But?”

“No ‘but’. Just… you know…”

“...spur of the moment?”

“Well, _obviously..._ But…”

“Oh, so there _is_ a ‘but’.”

“Will you fucking stop and let me finish the sentence?”

“Sure.” Clears her throat. Smirks. Gestures to him with her palm. “Go for it.”

Trying to gather his thoughts. Looking very serious. _So_ serious, in fact that, given the tone of the conversation, the hour and the estimated blood alcohol level, he looks rather adorable.

Then, the bottom line of all that ‘thinking’ effort is simply, “I liked you.”

Astrid snorts into her martini, and it goes through her nose and all over the place.

“Which _part_?”

He rolls his eyes and hands her a napkin. Waits for her to wipe her face and her fingers. Motions to the bartender to take care of the counter and get her another drink.

Then, “The part where you kinda saved my butt in that briefing.”

“Oh, well… you’re quite welcome. And it _was_ a rather…”

Rolls his eyes again with an exasperated shake of his head to go along with it. “...  nice butt to save. You _said_.”

“Did I? Say that?”

“Yeah. Great opening line, by the way.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“Yeah. _Kind of_.”

Both laugh. Astrid looks at him long and hard.

“What?” He’s not really embarrassed, but rather self-conscious under her intense stare.

“You know… if I had a penny for every time a… “ _What’s the word?_

“... one night stand…” A valid suggestion. And yet...

“... a _fifteen-minute_ stand… followed me across Europe to say he’s sorry he was kinda rude… I’d have a…”

“... penny, I know.”

“Right. So, you _know_ you’re special.”

“Oh yeah. Very.” His time to stare. He’s smiling as he does. Then cocks his head to the side right before motioning it to the door. “Wanna get outta here?”

“The back alley is _that_ way,” pointing her thumb towards the door behind her.

He shakes his head and rolls his eyes a little before staring at her deeply, challenging her to argue. They both know she’s joking, _and_ that he’ll never hear the end of it.

He reaches into his back pocket, fetches a twenty euro bill from a small black wallet, drops it onto the counter and nods to the bartender. Then offers her his elbow as he slides off the bar stool.

She takes it, shaky and unstable, as she links her arm with his.

“You have a place in mind?”

“Not _really_. Was thinking more along the lines of… taking a walk?”

Her head ducks back, eyebrows furrow closer together, then shoot up. “A _walk_ …”

“Yes. You know… two legs moving in an alternating manner… creating a forward motion… with a slow to medium velocity.”

“Oh… so an _actual_ walk.”

He laughs, “C’mon.”

“And then?”

“What, you need like the _whole_ plan?”

“Do you _have_ the whole plan?”

“Talking?”

“Wow…”

“I’m full of surprises, I know.”

He leads her outside and helps her with her coat, and her scarf as she fumbles to wrap it around her neck. Then, with a nod of approval and a content, adoring smile, he extends his elbow again.

The cold air sobers them both up in an instant. The streets are deserted; so is the river bank. The wind is stronger here, and he puts an arm around her shoulders. Her laughter is tinged with amusement and comes with a white cloud of air.

“What?” He grins.

“You’re nice, Peter.”

“Surprised?”

Curving down the corners of her lips and tilting her head from side to side, “Undecided.”

He pulls her closer. “Thanks. I guess.”            

“So… what’s next?”

“You mean… the _plan_?”

“No… I mean… where is this going?”

“Jesus,” he laughs out loud. “Does it _have_ to be going anywhere?”

“So… _not_ looking for a relationship?” _Please say ‘no’._

“No.” He looks into the distance, just staring, as if searching for something he knows he can’t find. His  arm still around her, they keep moving, the dry snow squeaking under their feet. Suddenly there is a sadness to that sound. Loneliness.

She knows this kind of look. She knows what he does. She knows the life.

“How long?”

He tears his gaze from the invisible spot and shifts it to her face. They exchange a look, appreciating the unspoken.

“Couple of months.”

“The job?”

“Yes.”

“Miss her?”

Nods. “Both of them.”

“Jesus… boy or girl?” She doesn’t know why she asks.

“A boy. Three months old.” He doesn’t know why he tells her.

“Wanna talk about it?” _Need to?_

“Maybe.” Thinks about it some more. Squeezes her upper arm. “Maybe later.”

  
  
  


**2016**

SXF. The plane lands and comes to a full stop. The flight attendants are saying something in German and then English. None of it registers. People are moving along the aisle, luggage compartments ease open and then slam shut, bags slide out and are carried to the exit. The chatter is in multiple languages, different voices. They all seem to have something in common - happy, excited. Tourists going on vacation, tourists coming home, businessmen, visitors, locals - they frame her mind with their presence, with their voices, their smells, the brief touch of their bodies and bags as they pass her along the way.

She doesn’t have luggage. There is a small purse on her lap containing just her passport, her wallet, and her phone. She has her son. That’s all.

Johnny is curled at her side - has been through the entire flight. His arms are locked around her waist. His head is resting on her chest. His hand is clasping at the photograph he’s been carrying around for the last two years or so - the one of his grandparents and his aunt. He’s never met them. But he knows they’ve come here to bring his father to his final resting place near them.

He’d cried himself to sleep shortly after the plane departed. She never managed to drift off. She did cry, though. She’s still crying. Quietly. Tears just streaming down her face. She hasn’t noticed the concerned looks from the other passengers. Nor did she touch the drinks and the food offered by the crew.

The flight attendant talks to her, urging her to disembark.

“Ma’am…?” It doesn’t register.

“Mom.” _This_ does.

She looks down at her son’s face, into his eyes. They are teary and red. They are so beautiful. So kind. All-knowing. Everything he’s thinking and feeling is right there. They are a gift. The one for which he will never be able to thank his father.

“I love you so much,” she whispers, unable to stop the the quiet sobbing.

He nods, without tearing his eyes from her face. The sensation of his cheek rubbing against her chest as he does sends waves of unexpected joy through her body.

“I love you too, mom.”

She places her palm on top of his head and leans in to press her lips into his dark hair. The pain in her back makes her catch her breath. She thinks about the shards of the coffee mug. Her arms wrap around her son and pull him onto her lap. They sit there for a little while longer, holding each other. They are the two remaining shards of a broken dream.

 

*

 

They are waiting in line for passport control when it hits her.

She has no idea where to go. Who to call. Berlin is a huge city. And she knows no one here. What does she say to the cabby? _Hi, this boy just lost his father. You might have seen it on the news. Can you take us to where his body is?_

Should she go to the embassy? What does she say to _them_? Will they be able to help? Is the Berlin CIA station listed in the tourist guide?

She takes out her phone and powers it up. Stevenson. He will know what to do.

Before she can even open the dialer, there is an incoming whatsapp notification.

-Call me as soon as you land

She does. He picks up on the first ring.

“Are you there? Was your flight ok? How’s Johnny holding up?”

She looks down at her son and pulls him closer.

“We’re ok. Yeah. Just landed.”

“Ok.” Stevenson is a man of actions, not words. She knows he’s worried sick. She knows he’s heartbroken. Johnny’s father was one of the few people he loved and respected in the world. “So, listen… I’m gonna say something to you that won’t be easy to stomach. And you’ll probably kick my ass when you get back.”

She smiles. Doubtful.

“Go on.”

“So… J and I… We kept in touch.” It doesn’t surprise her. It’s _news_ to her. But not really. On some level she always knew she was being watched over by him. “J” was what Stevenson called Johnny’s father from the first time they met. “Anyway, about half a year after he left, he called me. We met up for a coffee in DC. He gave me a number for this woman. Said even if he’s overseas, should something ever happen, should I need to contact him, I should call her and she might be able to reach him.”

The line is quiet for some time. Julia is waiting for more. Stevenson is dreading the next part.

“You there?”

“Yeah. Go on. Have you? Contacted her?”

“Yeah,I spoke to her today. She’s in Berlin right now. She’ll meet you at the airport. Her name is Astrid Keller.”

So many questions. Julia forces her mind into rational mode.

“How will she know it’s me?”

“She… knows you. She’s seen you and Johnny before. It’s a… long story.”

It doesn’t matter. Nothing really matters anymore. Long stories, short stories… they are all reduced to the background noise of her life.

“Thank you,” feeling her eyes well up again.

“You got it. The least I could do. Keep me posted, yeah?”

“I will. As soon as I know more.”

“This woman… Astrid... I think she’s in intelligence… or at least is connected in the diplomatic channels. She said she’ll help you with anything you need to bring him back.”

“Ok. Thanks.” _God, what would I… WE… have done without you in our lives?_ “Things good back home?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. Just tell me how things go over there. As soon as you know anything. Promise?”

“Will do. Promise.” She smiles again. Her tears dry up.

“Tell JJ I…” She can hear his voice break. “Fuck…”

“Hey… he knows. He loves you too.”

“Yeah…”

She’s about to hang up, when she hears his voice again.

“Jules?”

“Yeah?”

“That woman… I think J and her had a, uh…”

This makes her laugh. That’s what he’s worried about now. Now. That’s why he dreaded telling her about Astrid. Did he really think she expected him to be celibate for eight a half years? But it’s not the kind of thing she wants to discuss in front of her son. She’s been married herself. She’s been in other long relationships. Life went on for both of them.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. I’ll call you soon. Love you.” And the line goes dead.

  


Astrid walks over to them the moment they step into the arrivals terminal. The airport is a sea of people. But somehow Julia spots her right away.

Astrid is tall, slender, graceful. She’s just walking, making her way through the crowd, but she stands out. She didn’t wave when she first saw Julia looking at her, didn’t smile. And there’s something about her, about the way she’s holding herself, her every movement - it’s so elegant that it seems almost regal.

She’s older. Much older than Julia. Probably older than Johnny’s father as well. But the years have been nothing but kind to her. And even though they are written all over her face, they make her exquisite beauty even more distinct. Her large eyes are a dark tint of blue, bloodshot. But they are kind, smiling. It’s a sad smile.

She walks straight to Julia and softly hugs her. Taken by surprise, Julia just puts her hand on this stranger’s back. Astrid doesn’t let go for some time, holding her close and tight. As tight as you would hold a friend you haven’t seen in a long time.

“I’m so glad to finally meet you,” Astrid says as she pulls away. She looks down at Johnny now, who’s snuggled to Julia’s side, both arms around his mother. Her eyes flicker and her lips tremble when she reaches for his face and touches her hand to his cheek. “And you.”

He is a beautiful boy, with silky dark hair, a shy smile and those bright blue eyes that she knows so well.

“Do I know you?” he asks in a very gentle voice.

“I’m Astrid.” She offers him a hand and, tentatively, he takes it. “I’m a friend of your father’s.”

His eyes glisten, tears reflecting the bright lights around them. “You mean you _were_.”

She’s confused. Then it hits her. She shifts her eyes to Julia’s face and stands up. “Oh my God, you don’t know?”

  
  
  


**2016, 8 weeks later**

When they first arrived, they had nothing on them except Julia’s purse and Johnny’s school bag. Astrid had to take them shopping: for clothes, underwear, shoes, toothbrushes… everything. She’s sitting on the bureau in her guest room and watches as Julia folds and packs all their new belongings into her travel bag. Eight weeks can be a lifetime, Astrid thinks. You can find friends where you least expect. You can have your lonely home suddenly fill with laughter and the smell of food everyday. You can fall in love with people you’d never met before and feel your heart twist in your chest as you watch them go.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Vague question. And Astrid knows that Julia understands what she _really_ means.

“Packing.” _No shit_.

Astrid rolls her eyes, fully knowing that Julia’s not looking at her.

“Good one. And… why?”

“Because we have to leave for the airport at 5AM and it’s past 10PM already.”

 _Jesus, this woman is stubborn_.

“Am I going to have to keep asking?”

“I dunno, _are_ you?” Without breaking her concentration, Julia gives her a smirky smile and goes back to folding Johnny’s pants.

“You know exactly what I mean, Jules.”

“I do. And _you_ know that I don’t wanna talk about it. So drop it.”

Astrid wraps her palms around the cup of tea in her hands and slumps her shoulders forward. Her elbows come to rest on her knees.

“I don’t want to drop it and I don’t want you to go.”

“I know.” Another smile, softer this time. “I’ll miss you too.”

“Yes, but I’ll miss you _more_ …” Astrid emphasizes the last word, waiting for the response.

“ _Don’t…_ ” Shooting a warning and contemptuous look in Astrid’s direction.

“What?”

That earns her a narrowed-eyed glance of ‘Don’t fuck with me’.

Astrid huffs in exasperation. “You idiot.”

“Yeah, you _said_.”

“I _mean_ it.”

“You always do.”

“But you’re not going to let me talk you out of it…”

“Not if I can help it. No.”

“He loves you.” Astrid is watching closely now, studying her face, waiting for a flinch, a flicker of an eyelid. Nothing.

“I know.”

“So?”

“So, nothing. He’s always loved me.”

“But you think he loves _her_ more…”

“God, I feel like I’m in _highschool_ again! What are we _twelve_ ? He loves her _differently_.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, you’re certainly entitled to your opinion.” Julia’s eyes scan the room, looking for something. “Could you…?” She motions with her eyes to Johnny’s pajama neatly folded on the dressing bureau that Astrid is sitting on.

Astrid picks it up, but instead of tossing it over, she puts it on her lap and wedges her elbows on top of it. Her expression gets a defiant touch of ‘Make me’. Julia shakes her head, letting out a loud sigh, then walks over and snatches it out of her grip. She goes back to the open bag on the bed and throws it in.

“Fine,” Astrid raises her hands in a surrendering gesture. “Stay for me, then. You know _I_ love you more than Carrie.”

Julia snorts. “You love fleet enemas more than Carrie.”

“True. _And_ you.”

Another snort. “Flattered. And you’re wrong about Carrie.”

“I am not. I respect her a great deal. She cares for him, I’ll give you that. But I’ve seen what she does to him. And she will _never_ stop. And if they actually get together… He’ll be happy for a while and then miserable for life and will _never_ walk away. She’ll suck the life out of him. And he’ll _let_ her.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, actually. Whether she means to be or not, she’s poison to him. Like an addiction. He keeps trying to get away and she keeps pulling him back in.”

“Again… _your_ opinion. In any case... It’s none of your business. Or mine. And also…” mockingly repeating Astrid’s words, “... ‘ _what she does to him’?_ He’s not a child. He’s a grown man who’s responsible for his own life. If she ‘ _sucks the life out of him’,_ he won’t _‘let her’_ . He’ll up and leave. But he has to figure this out on his own. For _himself_ . And we’ve _been_ through that.”

They have. Many times. Astrid stares into her tea. She’s _unconvinced_. And that’s probably the understatement of the century.

“Do you still love him?” When Julia doesn’t answer, she pulls on her arm to force her to stop packing and sit down on the bed. “Jules?”

Julia looks down at her hands, clasped together on her lap, fingers moving restlessly. “It doesn’t change anything.”

“Then why are you pushing him towards another woman?”

“I am not _pushing_ him _anywhere_ . I only came here because I thought he was dead. Listen, it’s been eight and a half years. And nothing has changed - he never did leave the Agency. And he’s all wrapped up in this thing with Carrie now. It’s… whatever it is. It’s his life now. And we have to get back to ours. I told him he can be as big a part of Johnny’s life as he wants to be. And I know he will be. But not mine. I mean, obviously he _will_ be. But not like he _used_ to be.”

Astrid gasps. “So you _did_ talk about it. Is _that_ why you’re leaving?”

Outsmarted. Right into the trap. Julia feels the anger rising from inside her. She can feel her face getting all flushed and hot.

“Yes.” She stands up and goes back to packing.

“What happened?”

“Astrid…”

“Did he _want_ to be a part of _your_ life again?”

Julia picks up the sweater she’s folding and throws it hard into the bag. Her eyes are flashing with frustration when she looks at Astrid again.

“He kissed me. Alright?”

Astrid’s jaw drops, her expression now both surprised and exasperated.

“ _He kissed you?_ Wow… _speaking_ of twelve-year-olds. Want to hide in the bathroom and whisper about it some more before my parents get home?”

Julia shakes her head. “He didn’t _just_ kiss me…”

“Oh…?”

“No. No ‘oh’. I mean, it’s _how_ he did it. And how he _acted_ afterwards. Like things were back to the way they used to be. Like the last eight and a half years never happened.”

“Well he probably wished they hadn’t _.”_

“But they _did_ . He left us. And I _let_ him. Because it was the right thing to do. And I still think it was. _You_ of _all_ people should understand it. You were the one who said he will never quit. And that’s not even the point. What you don’t get is why.”

“And why is that?”

“Because what he’s always looked for is something to _pull_ him out. Something stronger than the pull of duty, than the sense he can’t do anything else in his life. He thinks it’s the only thing he’s good at. And it’s _bullshit_ . And he used to _know_ it! He was a straight A student. He wanted to be an aeronautical engineer when he was growing up, dreamt of going to MIT.”

“He still could be…”

“ _I_ know that. And you do. But he’s so deep in the shit that his life has become, he can’t see himself anymore. Not as the man he used to be. Because eight and a half years ago, he was going to quit for real. And it wasn’t for me or for Johnny. It was for himself. For the things that _he_ wanted. For the dreams that _he_ used to have. You _can’t_ quit just because there’s something out there that’s pulling you out. You need to quit because there is nothing that keeps you _in_ anymore. And it’s the same with Carrie. He’s trying to cling to me… to what _we_ used to be… so he can get himself out of whatever his feelings for her are. And if I let him, I will always wonder if the man I'm with left a part of himself behind because he couldn't face dealing with it. And what’s worse… I will never stop thinking if _he_ is still wondering about that. So… _that’s_ why I am leaving. Because I’m his safe haven. And he will _never_ deal with _any_ of it as long as I’m around. He’ll keep going back to this fantasy world. But it’s _gone_ . It’s been gone for years now. And he needs to deal with his life in the _now_. With his job, with Carrie… with all of it.”

There are so many things Astrid wants to say. Julia’s eyes are locked on hers, as if daring her to argue. She can argue, alright. And _then_ some. Her eyebrows furrow, forming deep wrinkles. Her head moves back a bit. At first she just stares, long and hard.

“Fuck it,” she says finally. In one quick motion she grabs the edge of Julia’s suitcase and flips it over, spilling all its contents onto the bed. “You’re not going anywhere.”

The expression of shock and disbelief on Julia’s face is replaced by a flicker of anger, and then a look of amusement. But when she reaches for the suitcase, Astrid leaps for the handbag on the dresser and snatches both her and Johnny’s passports. Before Julia has time to react, she’s in the hallway, opening her weapon’s safe and locking the passports inside.

She turns around, and Julia is leaning against the door frame, arms crossed on her chest.

“I’m guessing we’ve moved past high school all the way back to the kindergarten.”

“You’re not running away.” Astrid is dead serious.

“I’m not ru… who said anything about running away? I’m going _home_ . I have a _life_ there. I have a _job_. He’ll be going home in a week or two as well. He’ll finish his rehab, figure out what he wants to do next. He’ll be back in his son’s life.”

“I see.” Astrid walks past her back into the guest room and takes her place by the dresser. “So why not wait _another week or two?_ What’s the rush? Oh, and while you’re thinking about _that_ , maybe another question… Why did you stay in the first place? Eight weeks ago you flew in thinking he was dead. He wasn’t. Great. Why stay? Because you’re right: You have a _life_ back home. You have a _job_. Johnny has school. Why did you stay? And don’t give me that bullshit about wanting Johnny to get to know him… That could’ve waited two or three months until he’s back in the US. So why stay?”

“Well, why did _you_ ? Or Carrie? Why did Max fly all the way here? For the same reason I did- Because he _has_ nobody else.”

“Jules, you really _are_ an idiot. You’re _not_ me, _or_ Max, _or_ Carrie. You’re _you_ \- the woman he _loved_  once, the mother of his son, a part of what he’d given up. And then, two months ago, you brought it all back into his life. How did you _expect_ him to react? When you’re here, every day, taking care of him, talking to him, when Johnny is here... Wouldn’t _you_ …” imaginary quote marks, “... _‘cling to that’_?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?” Julia’s eyes open wide. “That’s exactly why I _have_ to go. Because he keeps…”

“What? He keeps what? Trying to figure out what he wants in life? Trying to see if there’s still something out there? Beyond the job? Beyond Carrie maybe? You keep saying that you’re not pushing him towards her. But I think you _are_ . Whether you mean to or not. Because now that you’re here, you and Johnny, now that you’ve showed him what he’s given up, what he left all those years ago, what might still be there… And now you leave and take it all away again. What’s _left_ for him?”

“What’s _left_ is his life the way it was before I showed up here. Maybe it wasn’t _great_ . But it was _his_. Whatever he feels for Carrie he felt long before I came to Berlin. Same with the job. He’ll sort it out eventually. On his own.”

“Or you _assume_ he will. What if he _doesn’t_? He’s known Carrie for what… four years? In that time, she stood on a bomb to save his life, he tried to drown himself for her, he got shot, stabbed, gassed… God knows what else. Does that sound like someone “sorting it out”? Who’s to say in half a year you won’t hear on the news that he got himself killed for real?”

“I don’t know!” Julia’s voice jumps up as her eyes fill with tears. “But this is still _his_ life. His choice. I won’t treat him like he needs me to hold his hand. I never did.”

Astrid huffs a string of curses. “What _choice_? You’re leaving him with _none_! You keep saying that he’s not the same man he was when you met him. Well, now he _is_ again. He's going after what he wants. And that insane theory about him needing time away from you to sort out his life… Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe he already _has_? That maybe he kissed you because he _knows_ what he wants?”

Julia is quiet. For a long moment they stare at each other, saying nothing.

Then Astrid gets up and walks out of the room again. When she comes back there are two passports in her hand. She throws them on the bed and points to them.

“Here is _your_ choice. You think you’d be doing him a favour? You think you know what’s best for him? Fine, go home.” She starts to leave, then stops and turns around once more. “I’ve known him for eight and a half years. In all that time, I’ve _never_ seen him as happy as he is when you’re around. His eyes light up the moment you walk into the room. You think it’s a diversion from what’s _really_ important to him ? A _fantasy_? Do you really think you could live with yourself if this life ends up finally killing him? Are you willing to take that chance? If so, then go ahead and leave.”

Julia eyes the passports on the bed. When she looks back at Astrid, her mouth finally gives way to a tentative smile. “But you don’t think I will...”

“I _think_ you’ve fallen for that man all over again just as hard as he’s fallen for you. And I think you’re going to go back to that hospital, walk into that room, kiss him back and… “ Astrid smirks and winks. “ Well, I have _other_ ideas. But there’s a security camera in every room. Might wanna talk to Max about disabling it first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Nikitasunshine, a great friend, incredibly insightful woman and my personal moral compas when it comes to writing this thing... No words are good enough for saying how grateful I am for what you're doing to those chapters, using your heart, mind and skill to make it coherent. Thank you. Love you.
> 
> To Gnoemecat and Violiko, for late night discussions, for putting up with my breaking down points... you're like the light at the end of the tunnel when I start feeling lost. Love you both.


	6. There Was a Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been hard for me to choose a title for this one. Out of many possible. And I decided on "There was a light" because it references something in this chapter that someone might claim to be controversial.
> 
> In Quinn's letter to Carrie he tell her to think of him as a light on a headlines, stirring her clear of the rocks. 
> 
> I believe our life experiences cast shadows and project on our current state of mind. We want to be for those we love what we've seen someone being for us. And we have imagery that we once had in our heads following us. And sometimes finding its way to our thoughts, words and letters. It is my hope, and it is a premise of this story, that Quinn had had something in his life that was once for him what he later thrived to become for others, including Carrie.

**1985**

The third time they meet is when Johnny is almost eight and little Lizzy is almost three. It's also the first time he gets to hold Adele’s hand. The first time he remembers, anyway.

They came to a residential campus facility to check on one of Adele’s former patients - a nine year old girl who suffered hot oil burns at the hands of her foster brother. Adele is happy to chat with her, carefully checking her new bandages and finding the condition of her skin graft satisfactory. She knows she will keep coming here until the girl is assigned a new home. So does Braden. He leaves his wife to do her thing and takes Lizzy’s hand. She’s holding that book of hers under her other arm. He just knows she will find a quiet spot for him to read it to her. 

There is a long table in the corner of one of the rooms. It’s covered with a silky tablecloth with long folds around it hanging almost all the way to the floor. Almost. An adult wouldn’t be able to see underneath. And that gives Johnny enough of a safe space. He is sitting on the floor, hidden from the people around him. He’s been here for two years now. The agency is about fed up with his violent outbursts and constant running away. The therapist lady keeps asking him questions, playing pretend games and using all kinds of puppets. The puppets make him so sick. That man used the puppets, too. The bad man in his dreams. He wakes up screaming and thrashing in his bed almost every night. He can’t stand being in bed anymore. Even though the scary man is gone now and is not lying next to him. He goes to sleep on the floor, huddled in the corner. He can’t tell all that to the therapist lady. It makes him angry when she asks about it, or hints about it. And he starts screaming and kicking her away when she tries to hold him. 

Under the table is his favourite place. He is sitting on the floor, his back to the wall, knees pulled up to his chest, and he is reading. Reading calms him down. Just enough so that, sometimes, he can even smile and chuckle. Just enough.  But only when he is alone with his books and no one is watching. 

The silky folds raise a bit. He thinks it’s Jennifer coming to fetch him for dinner. But the face popping in is one of a little girl. She has big grey eyes and a long blond ponytail. Without asking, she crawls in and sits next to him.

“What are you reading?” she asks, stuffing her little head in between his face and the book.

He wants to tell her to go away. But she is so little. It’s not her fault he is always angry. He turns the book’s cover upwards, his finger serving as a bookmark.

“Timm Thaler,” he tells her, fully knowing she can’t read. 

“I don’t know it.” Her face turns upwards and is now really close to his. “What's it about?”

He summarizes the book in his head, wondering if it’s a good way to explain to a child so little. He has no idea. 

“It’s about a boy… who wanted to help his father win a gamble. So he trades his laughter for the ability to win any bet.”

“Oh, that’s so clever,” sitting next to him now, her cheek rubbing against the sleeve of his shirt. “Does he? Always win the bet?”

“Yes,” Johnny says, finding himself smiling. Her hair smells like flowers. “But he can never laugh again. Not even smile. The bad man tricked him and took his laughter away. And after a while, the boy realises he can have all the money he wants and anything he wants, but he can’t be happy about it.”

“Oh, so it’s a sad book,” she concludes.

“Yeah, it kinda is,” he nods. He hasn’t finished it yet. So he doesn’t know if Timm ever gets his laughter back. Against all odds he keeps talking. “See, I was thinking… if the boy made a bet… with someone… that he can have his laughter back… if he wins, he gets it back. If he loses, it breaks the contract with the bad man. And he gets it back anyway.”

“Yes!!! Yes, that’s right.” Her face is beaming, and she’s tugging at the shirt on his chest now. “Why doesn’t he? Does he?”

He doesn’t know how the girl did it, but he’s all excited now. He turns half way towards her.

“I forgot to tell you - he’s not supposed to tell anyone about the deal he made with the man.”

“Oh…”

“Yeah. But it’s a nice book. I really like it.”

She nods. She understands about liking books. She gives him hers. It’s Peter Pan. 

“Can you read for me?”

He smiles now. “Sure,” and he takes the book from her little hands and opens it where the green paper is stuck between the pages. “This where you left off?”

“Yes, my mom did. She reads for me.” She grabs his elbow. “My name is Lizzy. Elizabeth.”

“Hi, Lizzy.” He looks down at her and lifts his arm to let her get a better hold of it. “I’m John.”

“You’re so nice.”

He shivers from inside out. He’s not. Everyone says he’s bad and ill tempered. He hurts people. All the time. He doesn’t understand why people think that way about him. He does try to be good. Most of the time. He always does what he’s told. At least here. But he can’t help it sometimes and he goes off. They are grown-ups, they know better. If they say it’s because he’s bad, they must be right. He used to think it was because he got angry and upset. He really didn’t mean for it to happen. But he believes otherwise now. 

He looks at Lizzy. She’s just a little girl. She thinks he’s nice. She probably doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s not a grown-up. But it makes him feel so weird inside that he wants to cry. He would never hurt Lizzy. He frees his arm from hers and instead puts it around her. She cuddles closer, waiting for him to read. She seems to feel safe next to him. He likes the feeling of making someone else safe. Is Lizzy new here? If she is, he will do more than just never hurt her. He will protect her from others as well. It makes him smile again.

He starts reading. It’s the part about Tinkerbell drinking Peter’s poison. He knows this part. He can see Lizzy does too. She gets her hands ready to clap when Peter calls to all the children in the world to clap their hands if they believe in fairies. That would save Tink. 

The voices reaching them from the outside, somewhere in the other room, seem worried. 

“She was just here, I swear,” a man’s voice says.

“Uh-oh,” Lizzy’s eyes widen. “It’s my dad. I should go.”

She quickly grabs the book from his hands and starts crawling out. 

“Lizzy, wait.” He joins her, standing up and helping her up as well. “I’ll take you.” He waits for her to take his hand and leads her to the other room.

Two people rush over, smiles of relief on their faces. Lizzy’s mother is a small woman, very petite, she has hair the color of reddish sand and eyes just like Lizzy’s. Her arms are so slim, but they seem very strong. She scoops Lizzy up and holds her tight. She is not mad at all. Neither is Lizzy’s father. It makes Johnny think that these are some weird parents. They are not angry. Just happy she’s found. But he will protect her just in case.

“It’s my fault,” he says, squirming inside, waiting to be reprimanded or yelled at. “I was telling her about my book and I lost track of time. I’m sorry.”

“Mom, this is John.” Lizzy tugs at her mother's hair. “He’s so nice!”

“Is he?” The woman smiles down at him, still not angry. She waits for him to take her hand. “Hi, John. I’m Adele. This is Braden,” pointing at her husband.

“Hi,” he barely utters. Her hand feels so soft that he never wants her to let go.

“Mom, can we keep John?” Lizzy fires all of a sudden.

“Lizzy, we don’t  _ keep  _ people. People are not property,” her mother corrects her with a soft kiss. Then she looks at Johnny again. “Thank you for bringing her back, John.”

“Johnny Sullivan!” Jennifer’s voice makes him flinch. His face is a wincing mess all of a sudden. She only calls him that when she’s mad at him.

But the woman with Lizzy in her arms stops Jennifer from coming closer. Her face changes. She hands her daughter over to her husband and crouches down.

“Is that your name? John Sullivan?” Her eyes are moist now all of a sudden. 

He nods. Really confused now. But he’s happy she sheltered him from Jennifer’s wrath. 

“Can you wait here with Braden and Lizzy a minute?” She puts that soft hand of hers on his cheek now and it makes his own eyes tear up.

He nods again and steps closer to Braden. He feels Braden’s hand lie heavily on his shoulder. Jennifer can’t get to him now. He turns his face away from her and into Braden’s side.

Adele demands to see ‘that boy’s file’. They know her here, so she gets what she wants. One look at his birth records and she knows it’s him. She skims through the file, and her heart shatters in her chest into a million pieces. None of her prayers was answered. Not one. He’s had it worse than anyone she’s met. And she’s met quite a few. She asks to use the phone. She calls everyone she knows with power to make things happen right now. She’s not leaving him here. Not one second more. She’s taking him home and keeping him. God keeps bringing this boy to her. She finally takes the hint. He’s hers to take care of. He always has been. 

When she comes back, she throws her arms around him and holds him tight. He is so much bigger than the last time she held him. He smells of old clothes and cheap soap. She pulls away and takes his face into her hands. She knows she doesn’t need to explain it to Braden. 

“Johnny, would you like to come and stay with Lizzy, Braden and me?”

He doesn’t know what to say. He starts crying. Tears are streaming down his face, and he can’t stop sobbing. He was such a quiet baby, Adele remembers. He’s a battered boy now. Sad and broken. She can’t take one more second of his tears as she pulls him into her arms again. 

“Please come home with us,” she whispers, kissing his dark hair, holding him tight, like she did the night he had withdrawal tremors. 

He nods. It’s all he can do. And he cries harder.

Adele takes his hand and leads him out of that place. And out of his old life. Her hand is so soft and she doesn’t take it away all the way to their old car. He puts his other hand there too, holding hers with both of his now. He hopes she will never let go. And somehow he knows if he asks her, she never will.

  
  


**2004**

When he comes home this time, something is different.

Typically, if she isn’t hiding outside, waiting to jump him by the door, he lets himself into their apartment, scanning the room impatiently. The moment he sees her he surges into her arms, dropping his duffel bag and rifle as he goes. Wherever they meet is where they stay for a long time. He scoops her up, and she wraps her arms and legs around him. They don’t kiss at first. He buries his face in the curve between her neck and her shoulder. It’s the warmth. And the scent. Breathing her in until he’s dizzy. She - lets him. She never knows where he’s been, what he’s done. But she knows he needs this - home, her. When they do kiss, it’s what he calls the ‘smiley kisses’. Because in between, neither can stop smiling. At least at first. It’s the silliest kind of kissing they have, with the wrinkling and rubbing of noses, the giggling into each other’s mouths. And in general, as kisses go, this one is their favourite. Sooner or later, it’s no longer silly and becomes urgent and passionate. Sometimes they are hungry enough, or he’s dirty enough, for them to stop for dinner and a shower. In most cases, not.

But this time it’s different. 

The door opens, and Julia’s heart sprints into a happy flutter. She drops her book and jumps up from the bed.

But this time, he just stands there. Something is wrong; she sees it right away. His stare is empty. His eyes look like they’ve lost all their blue - they seem a pale and translucent grey. They’re in constant movement, his gaze shifting from place to place. His expression is just as hollow, lifeless. He looks like a man who suddenly stepped into an alternate plane of existence and is struggling to get a grip on this new reality. Like he knows this is where he’s supposed to be, but nothing will tether him to this place. 

“Johnny…” She walks over to him. As she comes closer, his eyes  finally settle and fix on her.

Julia  moves to close the door, but he’s in the way and doesn’t move. She has to nudge him slightly  so that he takes a step in. She carefully slides the straps of his bag off his shoulders and puts it aside. He follows her with his eyes,  saying nothing.

He looks down at her face, into her eyes, when she stands in front of him. But his expression  still doesn’t change. As if she’s one of the things he can’t bring himself to connect with in this weird place. 

When she stands on tiptoes and stretches up to kiss him, he finally moves, leaning in. But the moment their lips meet, he flinches so violently that she gasps. When she  touches his face, he jerks back as if her hand feels like scalding water against his skin.

“Ok, c’mon.” She carefully takes him by the elbow, while her other arm slides around his back.

She leads him in. Slowly. He follows. In the middle of the room, he stops. She can see he’s looking at her now. The hollowness in his stare is replaced by grief, remorse. He tries to smile, but his lips curve down instead.

“It’s ok. You’re ok. You’re home,” she whispers, taking deep breaths in between to keep her voice from shattering into a sob. 

When she says ‘home’, his eyelids flicker. He doesn’t jerk away when she touches her hand to his face again. He kisses her then, both palms around her head. And pulls away just as fast.

They eat in silence. Neither of them is hungry. He’s barely able to swallow the first bite and ends up just staring into his plate afterwards. 

Their apartment is a small one. There is a tiny kitchen and just the one room. Most of the space is taken up by their bed. There is an old, beat-up, faded, lazy boy armchair wedged in the small space between the bed and the window. Julia calls it Johnny’s one real place in the world. They spend hours at a time just cuddling there with a book. Or two books. She never sits there when he’s away. He told her once she’s not allowed to. Not without him. It was a joke. But she c ould never bring herself to anyway. Days and weeks with him gone, never knowing when or if he’s coming back, it’s too hard. She could never be in their happy place alone. 

That’s where he goes when they are done with dinner. His plate is still full. So is hers. 

He lowers himself into his armchair and stares dead ahead. Then out the window. 

For a while Julia lets him be. She puts away the food and turns off the lights, all but his favourite small lamp on the night stand at the other side of the room. 

She sits on the edge of the bed. The armchair is s o close  that she could easily reach his hand. But she doesn’t. She wants to ask: What happened? Did the mission fail? Did someone die? But she won’t. Because he might not be able to tell her. And she doesn’t want to add to his pain by making him feel bad about it. 

When he looks at her, she knows. The mission failed. Some of his comrades died, maybe all of them. He wasn’t able to save them. He barely got out himself. He came home, but a part of him didn’t. There are bits and pieces of him that are lost every time. This time it’s a big one. She sometimes wonders if one day  all of him will be gone , lost to her, lost to himself. She wonders if today is that day. She wonders if she will ever see him smile again. 

She thinks about it often when they walk outside, when they go to the mall… she looks at the people around and she wonders if any of them know. What this man, holding her hand and laughing, does for them every day.  They’re passing him by , and they have no idea that he is one of the nameless people who provide the blanket of security they enjoy. The ones who do horrific things to keep the malls open, children laughing.

“Jule.”

His voice jolts her out of her thoughts. She’s still sitting on the edge of the bed. She realises it’s the first thing he’s said since he walked in. His voice is low and husky. She can't respond, knowing if she tries she'll break down and cry. She knows if she says one word she’ll break down and start crying. She can’t afford to cry. Because no matter how scared and lost  _ she _ feels, it pales next to what’s broken  _ him _ this hard. And because he can’t bear her tears, never could, she won’t add to his anguish. 

Instead, she gives him the brightest and the most beautiful of smiles. She reaches for his hand, and he meets her half way. 

He pulls her in. In a heartbeat she’s on top of him, pressed against him so hard that it’s difficult to breathe. 

“Hold me,” he whispers.

She does. She feels herself too small, her arms too thin, too weak, too powerless to contain him, his despair. But she does what she can. She holds him with everything she has. She wraps her slim arms around him, burrowing them between the chair and his back. He drops his head onto her shoulder. 

Minutes pass. Then hours. He’s blacked out. She feels his breathing becoming slower, his heartbeat too. She knows he’s asleep. Her arms feel numb, her body is stiff and sore. But she still holds him, even as he sleeps. When she is finally sure he’s out for good, she leans her head against the side of his and closes her eyes as well. 

She wakes up c lose to dawn . H e’s awake now  too, staring out the window. He’s crying, quietly, voicelessly, tears running down his face and neck. She’s never seen him cry before. She  wasn’t really sure he could.

He feels her stir in his arms and slowly shifts his gaze to her face. And that’s when he lets go. He pulls her up closer, his hands clasping her back hard, and he hides his face on her shoulder, shaking, sobbing. She knows then why he can’t bear her crying,  why he goes frantic and looks like he is about to shoot someone. Because at this moment, she feels like finding the people who send him away on these missions and making them bleed slowly, one drop of their blood for every tear slipping through her pajama top.

She strokes his hair, running her fingers through it, slowly, gently. It’s a while before his tears run out, his trembling subsides, his breathing lapses back into a sleeping pattern. She doesn’t go back to sleep. She cries herself then, unable to hold it in any longer. Still holding him. 

_ There is dark water everywhere he looks. Pitch black sky above, not even a single star. It’s cold. He is so cold. His limbs barely move as he turns around. He needs to swim. To get himself out of here. He doesn’t know w _ _ hich direction to head in - i _ _ t’s too dark to see land. But he needs to go. To fight. To find his way back. To the life he is not allowed to have, but wants to so desperately. He needs to go home. Now. Or he will never make it. He will freeze to death or drown. He sees it then. Flickering in the distance. And he starts swimming. _

When he wakes up again it’s almost nine in the morning. The moment he lifts his head, she knows he has made it back. His eyes are red, puffy, tired, but  truly bright blue underneath. His smile is barely noticeable, but it’s real. It fades away for a moment when he sees her tear- stained face. But then it comes back, just a little sadder now. He wipes her tears with his thumb, then with the back of his index finger. His hand slowly slides under her chin as he leans in to touch his lips to her eyelid, then her cheekbone, all the way down to her mouth. It’s not a ‘smiley kiss’. It’s a ‘thank you’ one.’ She lets out one last sob and the air trapped in her lungs along with it, before kissing him back. 

They still say nothing, when he lifts her up in his arms and carries her to bed. He lowers her onto the covers and lies down next to her, then rises to hover over her, to kiss her again and again, to feel her arch against him as his hand slides along her side.

It’s slow. Quiet. But not dreamy. Beyond intimate, past immersive. The kisses are long, soft, overwhelming. They barely break away before they kiss again. It’s neither passion, nor desire. It’s a need. His need to be tender, gentle. To show her what she is to him, and what it  _ means  _ to him. Her need to tell him that she knows it’s not the last time, and not the first, either. Her need to tell  _ herself  _ that, despite not being sure she is strong enough to go through this again, when he needs her to -  she  _ will _ . To hold him. And not just for this time - for all the times he had to live through this alone before they met. 

He stills suddenly. Pulls away just enough to look at her. His hand comes up slowly until it reaches her face. His fingers trace wavy lines. His eyes follow every inch he touches, then fall back into hers.

“There was a light… I was in the water, in the dark...” he whispers, finally, smiling at the revelation, kissing her again as she smiles back. “On the headlands, Jules… There was a light. It was you.”

  
  
  


**2016**

Julia is still shaking  as she’s standing by the window i n the hallway . The adrenaline is wearing off, and her mind begins to grasp what she’s done. Everything she’s said. The look in their eyes when she said it. Whatever happens… Whatever happens… it doesn’t matter. Her palms are sweaty and cold as they curl into fists. Whatever happens, she’s kept her promise. 

The clicking sound of hasty heels against the floor tiles makes her turn around. At first she thinks it's Astrid, but it's not. It's that woman. The one who was inside with the bearded man. Julia remembers her face during the scene. It was wincing in pain, in agony, every muscle twitching as she tried to keep the  tears from falling . She cares. She didn’t want them to wake him up either. 

Her face has a different expression now as she approaches. Determined, fierce, single-minded, purposeful. No longer hesitant. And it’s not just that. It’s the way she holds herself, the way she stands. She seems taller. Julia feels herself shrinking under her eyes.

“Can we talk?” She asks right away. Her tone is impatient, a little forceful.

Julia swallows and nods. “Sure… Carrie, right?”

“Yes.” Carrie extends her hand.

“Julia Diaz.”

“ Yeah , I know.” That impatient tone again. She motions towards an empty waiting room.

They walk in, side by side. Carrie slams the door shut and, before Julia  even has a chance to turn around, she gets straight to business.

“What you did… in  _ there _ …” pointing to the door with her thumb. “It might  _ seem _ brave and noble, but it’s the most reckless, stupidest thing I’ve  _ ever _ seen anyone do.” Julia just stares back,  so she goes on. “Can you even  _ imagine _ what these people could do to you…  _ and _ your son… just for  _ knowing _ these things? Do you have  _ any _ idea who that man is and what you’ve opened yourself up to?”

She has an idea. A very good idea.

“I do.” Julia straightens her back and finds her voice again. 

“I don’t think you  _ do _ .” Carrie comes closer.

“Fine.” Julia stares at her defiantly.

Carrie’s eyebrows shoot up, her face showing genuine discontent, tinged with a touch of admiration. “ _ Fine? _ How do you  _ figure? _ ” Her intense blue eyes squint as her head tilts up and moves back.

As Julia keeps staring, not answering, Carrie lapses into analytic mode. She needs all the data sorted before she can proceed. Her mind wanders along the mental picture of events, players and connections. Compartments.

First, she needs to tease apart the different factors. The attack, it’s imminent. The cell, it’s connected to Quinn. They are connected, but they don’t go in the same compartment. She draws a mental sketch, with  hypothetical lines between the two.

And Quinn has his own compartment. Actually, he has two. 

One, for who he is - to her. This one is full of dust and question marks. And tears. And anger. Some resentment. Some tenderness. Mostly empty,  indistinct . But it feels full. And overwhelming. Because it’s fucking in the middle of everything. Wherever she goes in her mind, whatever she tries to figure out, she has to go around it. It’s always in the way, muddying her thoughts. Sometimes to the point that she has to go through it. 

The other one, is just Quinn. Who he really is. And does she even know? What he does.  What he’s capable of. What she’s afraid he’s capable of. Or what he would do. It’s a pile, a mess. But it’s like that mess on your desk where you always know where everything is, what everything is used for... The box labeled ‘who he is’ is made of thin paper. Every time she touches it, it shifts, collapses and expands, changes shape.

There are two dashed lines connecting both of these compartments to the one of the attack. In her mind, when she uses this structure, the dashed lines signify a ‘maybe’. There is a ‘maybe’ line connecting the ‘other Quinn’ compartment to the attack, because he  _ is _ connected to the cell, but that information is not accessible to her. And now it never will be. And the one connecting ‘her Quinn’ to the attack is another ‘maybe’. The one that makes her eyes sting with tears every time her mind goes there. A ‘maybe’ of  _ I shouldn’t have left you, you should’ve been there, I’ve failed you, again. _

She blinks that thought away- there he is! in the middle again-  and gets back to sorting out.

She looks at Julia. She knows about her, but not much. She knows Quinn has a son out there. This is the mother of Quinn’s child. 

Right then, they both go into the ‘other Quinn’ compartment. The paper box wiggles, and the new  contents makes the thin walls change shape. They are a part of him, his past. A part she was never privy to. Was that because he never wanted to tell her? Because she never really asked? Stopped long enough to care to ask? Even the fact that she knows about him having a son  is a piece of inte l, not because he told her. Carrie shakes it off. It’s not important right now.

The connection. There has to be a connection between this  suddenly overly-populated Quinn compartment and something new, something else. Who would know? Who would care enough to provide Julia with the means?

She realises she’s been quiet for some time. And that Julia never answered her question. 

The way Julia looks at her now makes Carrie uncomfortable. As if she knows what Carrie is thinking, feeling. As if she can see the new shape of  Quinn’s box, and she’s laughing. Because it’s all wrong. Because Carrie doesn’t know who he is. And why  he is this way .

_ Knows _ . Carrie is focused now. One word is all she needs. That’s the question. That’s the connection. She burrows her gaze into Julia’s eyes.

“How did you know all those things?” Then, mostly to herself. “Dar. Dar told you. Astrid? Probably  _ not _ Astrid. She wouldn’t know the half of it.”  Talking to Julia again .  “Was it Dar?”

Julia:  _ Yes.  _ “Does it matter?”  _ Why does it matter? _

Carrie:  _ Because it fucking matters. It’s the connection. And it involves you. And you’re part of Quinn. And you can get hurt in ways you can’t even imagine. You’ve put yourself in harm’s way. And someone let you. Someone showed you how. Someone used you. I don’t know shit about you, I don’t even know why I care, but I know Quinn would. _

Exasperated sigh. “Of  _ course  _ it does. Because you’re most likely being played.”

Played? Julia’s eyes open wide in genuine shock. Really? After everything she said in there, this woman thinks she cares about being played?

“I don’t understand,” she finally fires back. Because she really  _ doesn’t _ . “I  _ saw  _ you in there. You didn’t want them to wake him up either.”

Carrie’s chin wobbles, her lips purse, a trembling wave ripples through every muscle of her face. It takes some effort to regain a confident expression.  _ I didn't. But I had to. We had to. You will never understand. You don’t know what you have done. _ She stops for a second, and is finally honest with herself:  _ Ok, OK! Fine! What I should have done. _

She takes a deep breath. Then another one. But her thoughts are still a swirl. She’s angry. And relieved. And then more angry, at herself. The way Julia stares at her makes it harder to focus. 

_ Quinn. Julia is in the Quinn compartment. Go for Quinn _ .

Her tone is softer, less resolved now. “If something happens to you… or your son…  _ his _ son. How do you think  _ he  _ will feel? If he  _ ever _ comes out of this? How do you figure he will be happy that his life was spared at the expense of yours? How do you think he will feel knowing that his life was spared and the expense of hundreds of others?”

Julia’s eyes flash with a mix of anger and pain. They grow dark, almost black. The adrenaline hits so hard again that she can feel the blood pumping in her ears. She steps closer. So close that when she speaks, Carrie can feel each word bouncing out of her own face. 

“I don’t  _ give  _ a shit. He can be mad at me, disappointed, he can hate me for the rest of his life for all I care. I’ve seen enough of this world chewing him up and spitting him out. And him leaping head first for more. Well, fuck  _ him _ . You’re talking to me about hundreds of people.. Maybe  _ thousands…  _ that can  _ maybe _ be saved if he  _ maybe _ has the information you need… i n the event he is  _ maybe _ able to even be  _ coherent  _ enough or  _ conscious  _ enough to recall it…”

Carrie retreats, but not really. “It’s not the  _ point _ . The threat is real. And yes, hundreds, maybe thousands…”

She doesn’t get to finish.

“What about all the  _ other  _ hundreds of lives  he’s already saved ? The thousands? I don’t even know how many! He’s given his life, his  _ whole  _ life, every day for  _ years, protecting  _ and serving. How many has he saved already? How many attacks? Lives? And even now, when he’s barely survived his  _ last _ mission, he’s expected to risk his life  _ again _ to save yet more?”

“He’s an  _ officer _ … an  _ operative _ . On active duty.” Carrie’s anxiety is rising and it takes all her will power to keep her voice from jumping to notes that unnerve her. “Yes, the mission was fucked up, and he made a rush decision which turned out to be a tactical mistake…”

“No shit!”

“That’s right. No  _ shit _ .” Carrie leans closer herself, feeling her face becoming hot and flushed, knowing it’s beyond her control now. Not caring anymore. “And,  _ by _ the way, the same man who got  _ you _ involved in this is the one who  _ approved _ it. With  _ no  _ tactical support,  _ no  _ real plan,  _ no  _ briefing,  _ no  _ intel. And that’s what I’ve been saying to you. You might  _ think _ you know who  Quinn is and what his job involves, but you have no  _ fucking  _ idea. And you know how I know that? Because I’ve been doing this for almost fifteen years and  _ I  _ don’t have any fucking idea either. But Quinn… Quinn knew what he was doing. Or so he  _ thought _ . And the point is, Dar trusted him enough to let him go through with it. And Quinn did what he always did - his  _ job _ . And yes… I  _ don’t _ want him to be woken up. I  _ don’t _ want to risk his life again after everything he’s been through. But I  _ do  _ know what’s at stake. And so would  _ he _ . And I have  _ no  _ doubt he would have wanted us waking him up, even if it meant risking his life. Because as heartbreaking is it sounds… that whole  _ ‘spitting him out’ _ story of yours… This is what he  _ chose  _ to do. And even when he  _ wanted  _ out, he ended up choosing it all over again.” 

Julia lets out a bitter chuckle.

“Right. He  _ did _ . And I’ve seen what it did to  _ him _ . For  _ years _ . Days  _ and _ nights. I’ve seen his life going through the shredder because of this  _ job _ . Sometimes he’d come home  _ so _ broken, that I was sure he’d never be the same again. He had nightmares. So horrible that he would wake up in a cold sweat, screaming, beating me…” Her voice breaks and becomes inaudible, unable to flow around the lump in her throat.

Carrie deflates, feeling every muscle of her face relax. Then tremble. She looks aside. Then back at Julia, into those dark eyes behind the pools of tears. She can feel her arm twitch and realises she’s about to reach out, touch this woman. But before she can, Julia steps back, shaking a ‘no’ with her head.

“There was a treatment.” She continues, having found her voice again. “He  tried several, actually. Prazosin helped- the nightmares  went away.  It worked for a while. But one time he almost fainted on a mission because of one of the side effects. So he stopped.  And I don’t mean the  _ job _ .”

The bitter irony breaks through Julia’s chuckle. Carrie’s eyes well up again.  _ The pills. He stopped the pills. Of course he would.  _

As if reading her thoughts, Julia nods. 

“Yeah. He stopped taking Prazosin. And the nightmares came back. And he was ok with that. So yeah. I know _something_ about him choosing this job. About being reckless. About always putting himself last. And that’s _him_. _His_ fucked-up priorities. Loyalties. But it’s not _him_ making a choice right now, is it? It’s _you_.  You and the same agency that’s been crapping on him and his life for _years_. _He_ never cared. Probably still doesn’t. But _you_ should. And I think _you_ actually _do_.”

Carrie looks away again, then down at her hands. Julia can see her brow form thick wrinkles, relax, then do it all over again. She can’t see her face. But she knows her answer.

“I don’t know how well you know him. Or what you know  _ about _ him. So I’ll just speak for myself. Many years ago I loved him so much I would have given anything, done anything, if it meant he could get his life back… sleep better, eat better, stop losing parts of himself every time he went away. I  _ don’t  _ love him like that anymore. It’s been almost a decade. But then I watched that broadcast and it all came back. The anger. At  _ you _ . At the agency. At the people who  _ let  _ him l ive that life. Who  _ knew  _ what those men were going through and they  _ let _ them.”

She makes her way to the window in the far side of the waiting room. She points outside in the downward direction.

“To all those people outside, the victims of that attack you’re trying to stop… he’s just a nameless person. They have no idea that this ‘peace’ that they live is actually in the shadow of a constant war. That there are people fighting, dying, everyday to avert an attack that could ruin their little world of worries. Or even if they do, they will never know their names, never hear how they died. But to  _ you _ and  _ me...  _ He’s  _ not  _ nameless. He had dreams. Many dreams. He liked Sinatra. The Beatles. He liked to read. To walk. He has a  _ son _ . One he’s never met. A boy almost orphaned just days ago. Maybe he never meets him. Maybe his father will wake up and make another reckless decision and die for real this time. But it won’t happen today. Because I can’t  let it. I’d wanted to say ‘no’ to him so many times. No more missions. No more risking that life. Enough. And I always ended up letting him go again. But I can’t. Not this time. Not anymore. Say I’m a horrible person, that I don’t see the big picture, that I don’t care about hundreds of possible victims... say what you want. I really  _ don’t  _ care. Whatever that costs me, if I’m being played, I’ll deal with it.”

It takes a moment for Carrie to catch her breath. She realises she’s been holding it the whole time Julia was talking. She goes through all the things she wanted to say. She knows Julia is right. But she is wrong too. Something is off. Something just doesn’t make sense. 

“How is what  _ you _ have done any different from what…” imaginary quotes, “...  _ ‘ _ _ we’re’  _ doing? How is you saying ‘no’ to what he would have wanted - what you  _ know _ he would have wanted - any different from waking him up without asking him if he would? Other than the fact that having it  _ your  _ way puts  _ you  _ in danger, and ends up costing hundreds of people their lives?”

“I don’t know, Carrie,” Julia whispers. It’s all she can do now, suddenly feeling so exhausted she can barely stand. “It probably isn’t any different. But it’s what I can live with. The  _ only _ thing I can live with. And, more importantly… and  _ literally _ … so can  _ he _ . I am not sure I can ever explain to you what I’m feeling and why I’ve done this. And it’s not  _ your _ fault. It’s very personal. Something that I thought was long gone and now is back with a vengeance.” She looks down at her hands, trying to find the right words. There is so little she knows about his life now. And she doesn’t know anything about Carrie. When she looks up again, she tries to measure every word. “See, you keep saying he’s an active operative. And it’s true. To the Agency, at least, he’s just a source of information right now. Means to an end. But I look at him and all I can see is the man I loved many years ago. A man who was fighting so hard to have a life he wanted, to break free. But the Agency just kept pulling him back, time after time. I know I can’t see the big picture. Not like you do. Every time I try, he’s right in the middle of everything. I’m not even sure I’m making any sense.”

Carrie’s heart flips in her chest and she swallows around the lump in her throat.  _ Agency. Right. _

The anger comes before she’s able to get a hold and try to control it. Before she’s even aware of what it was that Julia said that struck a nerve. Because it  _ does  _ make sense. And it hurts.  Because somehow the anger is tinged with shame and regret.  And it makes her feel exposed,  _ too  _ exposed, and makes her want to hurt back. Unable to keep it in, she lets out a loud puff of air and tilts her head to the side.

Both eyebrows raised, she waves her hand. “But aren’t you  _ forgetting  _ something?”

At first Julia doesn’t reply. She’s waiting for Carrie to go on. But for some reason Carrie keeps staring her down, the blue in her eyes is a mere rim around the blown pupils.

“Forgetting what?”

“That it’s been almost a  _ decade. _ ”...

**_...Or_ ** **_just_ ** **_two and a half years_ ** **...**

“And you’re here because you’ve watched some news on TV, in the comfort of your home.”

**_...And I am here because I watched the news in a bar. Nine days after I left him to die and ran off to fix my new life when my old one finally caught up with it. The life that he wanted to have, with me, and that I ended up living with somebody else..._ **

“And  _ he’s  _ here because he’s  _ still  _ an  _ active operative _ , all those years later, it’s  _ still  _ his life.”

**_...Or because my old life caught up with him too_ ** **...**

“Because I’m  _ guessing _ , and I don’t think I’m  _ that  _ far off, that almost ten years ago when he  _ made  _ this choice that you’re talking about, he walked  _ out _ . On you  _ and _ your son, on all of that  _ life _ he wanted so much.”

**_...And still_ ** **_wants_ ** **_. Or did. Before Syria..._ **

“And he chose this  _ job _ over you, like he  _ always _ did.”...

It comes so fast and so hard, the pain so sharp and sudden, that Carrie cries out. And yet the sound it makes echoes across the room and bounces off the walls longer and much louder than t he sound o f her scream. The sensation is so piercing, and the searing heat on the side of her face so immediate, that her hand flies to her cheek. Tears of shock and pain burst through.

She burrows her eyes into Julia’s, fierce, enraged, humiliated. She has never been slapped before. It consumes her, the feeling of shame and disgrace, lapsing into flames of anger. Her first reaction is to hit back. To lash out.

But something on Julia’s face stops her. The hurt. Not the kind that you feel when someone has struck a nerve. It’s the real hurt. The one you get when what’s been said to you is profoundly untrue, when it touches something so intimately personal that it’s rendered immensely painful.

The hand that slapped Carrie drops dead at the side of Julia’s body. She looks even smaller all of a sudden, sunken, defeated. Her tears are not just in her eyes anymore, they are flowing freely. Her mouth curves, then her lips part as if she’s about to say something, but in the end she doesn’t. She turns, pushes the door open, and leaves. Her steps are quiet, and as she walks away, with every passing second, she becomes smaller yet.

Carrie watches her slow down as she passes Quinn’s unit. But she doesn’t stop, doesn’t look in. She walks on by.

At the end of the dim hallway there is a door. It’s a beautiful day outside. The sun breaks through the glass and paints thick stripes across the floor tiles. The light.

With the back of her hand Julia wipes the tears from her face, then dries her eyes. Johnny has been so happy since he found out that his father was not just alive, but that in fact right here, at this very hospital.

Before she walks through the doors, Julia stops. She looks at the light outside. The mere shadow of a smile touches her lips.

Whatever happens, she has kept her promise. Not the one she’s given to him. But to herself. Every time he’d come home a tortured wreck, every time she managed to finally pin him down and hold him as he was battling her off during his night terrors, she promised herself that she would never stop. That she would do anything to not let that world consume him, break him apart, take away the last part of him.

And she did.

Johnny and Astrid are waiting outside. 

Johnny jumps onto her at the door, giggling happily. She lifts him up and they perform their ritual of rubbing wrinkly noses. He’s too big for her to be doing this, but she can’t let go. Throwing his legs behind her back, she kisses him all over his grinning face.

“Ready to go?”

“Is dad ok? Going to be ok?” He studies her face.

“Not yet. We don’t know. But…” she snorts a puff of air into his neck. “Your  _ daddy _ is stubborn and strong. And he’ll be walking around and grumbling in no time.”

Johnny laughs, “Crazy badass motherfucker.”

“Yep.” Julia sets him down and only then notices two raised eyebrows on Astrid’s amused face. 

Johnny feels the need to clarify.

“That’s what mom used to call dad before I was born. I’m named after him.”

It’s not what Astrid was puzzled about, but she plays along.

“Yes, I know. John.”

“Not John.” And there it comes. “Crazy Badass Motherfucker Junior.”

Astrid laughs, messing up his dark hair, so silky that it reflects the sunlight and breaks it into different colors. “I can see the resemblance.” She turns to Julia then. “I have to go now. Here…” reaching into her purse, she retrieves a set of keys and removes one. Then gives Julia the address. “I’ll probably be busy all day. Maybe all night too. There is a guest bedroom. You’ll find the bedsheets and the towels… I’m sure you’ll manage.”

“Oh… wow.” Julia shakes her head. “We  shouldn’t . I’ve already booked the hotel.”

“Unbook it. You’re staying with me.” Her tone is so decisive and resolute, that Julia just  accepts and smiles back.

“Thanks. Really.”

“Sure. You’ve got my number. Call if you need anything. I’ll let you know how things go…” she motions her head to the hospital. “... here”.

Carrie walks out soon after. Looking straight at Astrid and avoiding Julia’s eyes. 

“We should go. The briefing is in twenty minutes,” said in a dry, calm, all-business voice.

Astrid nods. But then stops to look at Carrie’s face.

“What’s  _ that _ ?” She points to a red mark on Carrie’s left cheek, the unmistakable impression of fingers.

“Nothing,” Carrie scoffs. Starts to walk away. 

Astrid catches up. “Looks like  _ something _ .”

“A misunderstanding.”

“I’d  _ say _ .”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nikitasunshine,
> 
> I can't even say anymore that you 'doctor' or 'edit' my stories. You co-author them. You bring so much of your talent and your soul into them that when I read it, I see us, our thoughts, both silly and meaningful, merged together. You're beyond inspiration. You're the light on the headlines. There.
> 
> Gnomecat and Violiko,  
> I draw strength and confidence from your support and kindness even when I turn self destructive and flat out stupid. You always find the right words, the kind words, to make me snap back. Your comments, both here and in out little crazy group, are so thoughtful and supportive. I am delighted beyond words to have met you both.
> 
> Love.


	7. Wise, Reasonable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violiko, who reshuffled a part of this chapter, had this [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-ImCpNqbJw) in her mind for Quinn's coming home hip hop song. LOVED it.

**1985-1988**

They never part again until the day Adele dies. Until the day they all die.

The first night he stays there, he’s given his own room, new clothes, new towels, all kinds of new soaps and shampoos. His hair smells like Lizzy’s now. She is waiting for him, dressed in her own pajamas. Hers has tiny red flowers with miniscule green leaves over the pink fabric. His - the ones that Adele and Braden just bought for him on their way home - is an off-white one, with fleece on the underside. It feels like a cloud against his skin. He’s never felt anything like that in his life. Ever.

Seeing him get out of the shower makes Lizzy bounce and giggle.

“Mom, can Johnny read for me tonight?” her eyes are a begging pool of sweetness.

“Sure, love,” Adele kisses her and nudges her towards the bedroom. Then she turns to Johnny. “You don’t mind, do you?” she knows the answer to that one. The two of them have been inseparable through the entire evening. Like two peas in a pod who were always meant to be together.

“No,” he says. It comes out a little too fast. And he feels she might take it as him saying no. So he adds, “I would love to. I want to.”

“Oh my goodness, you’re so amazing,” Adele is a smiling and beaming light in the hallway, when she holds him, kisses his head, presses him against her. She smells of dinner. They had meat roast with mashed potatoes, gravy and salad.

Johnny doesn’t want to cry again. He’s been crying on and off all evening. It doesn’t seem right. He should be happy, smiling. Not crying. He doesn’t want these nice people to think he is sad and not grateful. Because he is. Oh, he SO is. He knows now Adele can never be mad at him. Or Lizzy. Or Braden. But Braden is harder for him to read. He is very quiet most of the time. He is a tall skinny man with dusky hair and brown eyes. His face is long and open. Clean shaven. He seems to have a very special smile - it’s small, very small, just in the very corners of his eyes and his thin lips. Most of the time Adele is the one doing the talking and the laughing. But Johnny can see Braden never takes his eyes off of her. Or Lizzy. Or him, now.

It’s then that Braden comes close and puts two hands on Johnny’s head. He bends down to reach him and whispers something into his hair.

“It’s a blessing,” he says, in an accent that Johnny has never heard before. “A foyne one, too. You go off now, read to Lizzy, ye?”

He learns later that it is an Irish accent. Braden’s words are few, but they are colorful. He explains to Johnny some months later that Quinn, their family name, means ‘wise, reasonable’ and Sullivan, his name, means ‘dark eyed, or hawk eye’. He likes their name better.

The moment he sits on Lizzy’s bed, she jumps under his arm, practically forcing herself close to him. It’s that feeling again, of being stronger than her, older, being able to protect her, feeling his arm guarding her - that gets him again. It’s the best feeling he has had in his whole life. He thinks maybe he should become a policeman. He likes it alot. He knows he can hit hard with his hands, he is very good at fighting, very instinctive. But with Lizzy he feels he can do more - he can hold her, he can feel his hand so gentle, so caring. This is what he likes doing with his hands. More than fighting, more than hitting.

“Will you stay with us forever and ever and ever?” Lizzy, cozy at his side, lifts her sleepy face to his.

“I don’t know,” he answers, suddenly afraid he might not.

“I want you to,”  she says, looking at him wistfully.

He doesn’t have an answer to that one. It makes him feel scared inside. What if he is taken away and she is sad about it? What if she is mad at him for leaving even though it’s not his fault? Before he finds an answer, she thinks of something.

“You’re like Peter Pan,” she says.

It makes him laugh, a sudden burst of happiness leaping out of him into the room, “How so?”

“‘Cause you were in the house with all the lost boys… children.”

“Ah…”

“Yeah! And you look like Peter Pan, too. In my head.”

He laughs again. He looks like a normal boy. But he likes it that she thinks of him this way. Peter Pan could fight for his friends, he could protect the girls. He wouldn’t mind being Peter Pan at all.

“Will you be my Wendy?” he asks in a mysterious whisper.

“Yes!” she bounces under his arm and her head nods and nods and it seems to never stop. “It’ll be our secret,” she suggests.

The pain in his chest is so bad he can’t breathe. The secret. He hates that word. It makes him hurt everywhere. ‘It will be our secret’. The scary man can’t be here. Not here. He closes his eyes and tries to make him go away. He remembers, suddenly. What happens at night when he goes to sleep. How he ends up waking up from his own screams. How he wakes up in the corner on the floor in the morning. He doesn’t want it, not to scream, that would wake up those nice people. And Lizzy. This is how it always happens. This is how he ends up running away. He can’t have people knowing. Hearing.

“Peter,” he hears Lizzy whisper into his ear, her palm curled around her mouth, touching his head. His eyes fly open. He is in her bedroom. “Were you imagining how we fly away from the window? That why you closed your eyes?”

No, he wasn’t. But he nods. And he holds her closer. Read, Johnny, he tells himself. Read, Peter. Reading makes the bad man go away. So, he does. The sound of his own voice surprises him. He’s calm. His reading is expressive. He makes all kinds of funny noises for her. For his Wendy.

Her head falls on his chest when she dozes off. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t want to go to his room. He needs the Neverland. He needs Lizzy. He lets her sleep. And he dozes off himself.

 

It’s on the third night that he spends at his new home that they all find out. Adele wakes up to a horrible sound. Screaming. Yelling. Crying. Begging. She’s out of bed in a heartbeat, forgets her slippers, runs to Johnny’s room. She sees Lizzy in the hallway already, her eyes are terrified. Adele doesn’t know that to do - to hold her daughter or to run to the boy who needs her.

“Johnny is hurt, mommy,” Lizzy starts crying.

Adele falls to her knees next to her brilliant, sensitive little girl and pulls her into her arms. “He is, honey. He is. But he’ll get better. We’ll help him.”

“Go, mommy, GO!” Lizzy is pushing her away, towards his room. “Make it better. Make him stop being hurt,” she cries.

Braden scoops Lizzy up into his arms. He looks at his wife. His eyes beg the same.

Adele runs into Johnny’s room. He is thrashing in bed. Covered with cold sweat. She tries to hold him, whisper to him. He hits her hard, kicks her in the stomach, slaps her on the face, then his fists are just a shower of hits all over her. He screams at her to get away from him, to leave him alone. She is all sore- he is very strong for a little boy. They all are, she knows. The hurt ones. They have the strength to fight off their pain.

He leaps away and falls down. Then he crawls on the floor, really fast, into the corner. He sits there, shaking. She sits on his bed, helpless, teary. Then he just stops. His little body goes limp. She takes his pillow and his blanket and she gets on the floor herself. She crawls next to him. Touches him. He is asleep. She puts the pillow on the floor, pulls him into her arms, cradles his head against her chest, covers them both as much as she can with his blanket. Before she knows it, she starts singing again. Her voice is strained and broken with tears. But she sings and sings. And she prays and prays. Until she falls asleep.

Johnny wakes up on the floor. In Adele’s arms, his head is stuffed into her chest, her arms are tight around him. She is still sleeping. He is afraid to move. He knows what happened that night. The bad man came to take him. But Adele saved him. He closes his eyes and drifts off. Her smell, her warmth are all around him.

 

Adele tears apart the medical library at work, then at the university. She calls all the child psychiatrists she knows. She is looking for something to help him. Something other than her arms around him at nights like that. He is trying so hard to get better. It breaks her heart to see how he tries to battle his demons so his pain doesn’t break their peaceful life. She loves him for that even more. And she tells him that, every day. She believes it, too - he is the most special child she has ever seen, the kindest, the bravest, the sweetest. She wills her love and her prayers to save him from the hurt of his past. It seeps in slowly. Months go by. Then years. And his nightmares become lighter, easier to control, further apart.

His grades shoot up. His teachers can’t praise him enough. He is very perceptive, very well behaved, very good at comprehension, very good at math - he is very good at everything he touches. And he is passionate about everything he does. He gets into fights, sometimes. Adele is called to his school for that. He sits outside the principal's office and feels bad, because she’s been woken up after a night shift. But then he hears her defend him, loud and vigilantly. She always stands up to him. She never believes the lies the other kids say. He always used to feel so helpless when other people would lie and no one would believe his story. Adele always believes him. She knows that boy never lies. He’d rather stay silent than say something he doesn’t mean. And she tells the principal to ‘leave him the fuck alone’. And she says she will get the parents of the kids who were involved and teach them a ‘fucking lesson or two’. Then she walks out of the office, and he leaps into her embrace. Because he heard everything. And because she believes him. That’s when she takes him home. The school is always over on days like that. They go out for ice-cream. And then they walk around and look at stuff, do window shopping, laugh.

 

He is almost eleven years old when he first comes to Adele’s work. It’s early morning. He takes the bus. He rides all the way to her hospital. Then he waits outside. Braden gave him permission. He thought it was a great idea. But he is worried about what Adele might say. Not that she would get mad, but that she would get upset that he was on the bus on his own.

She walks out the ER entrance and sees him sitting on the fence. He jumps down, but doesn’t go to her yet. Her clogs thumping on the ground, she runs to him. She picks him up. He’s no little boy anymore. But she is very strong. He can’t help laughing when she spins him around.

“Morning, my love,” she kisses him all over the face. She smells like bleach and some medicines he doesn’t know.

He doesn’t have to ask if it’s ok that he came anymore. He knows it is. She shows him, showering him with love, smothering him with hugs and kisses. She is so happy to see him. So tired, but so happy.

She throws her bag onto her shoulder again and takes his hand. God, he loves her hands.

“Wanna grab some breakfast?” she asks as they walk side by side, morning sun on both their smiling faces.

There is a diner next to the hospital. He eats there with Braden and Lizzy sometimes  after taking Adele to work. He likes the pancakes.

“Yes, please,” he smiles at her.

“Alright then,” they start running. It’s not a competition. It’s just fun to run when you’re happy.

Adele has coffee. Then more coffee. The nice waitress keeps bringing her refills. They know each other. She knows Johnny, too. She calls him ‘Peter’ (because Lizzy isn’t very good at keeping secrets after all) or ‘cutiepie’ or ‘honey’ or ‘blue eyes’. He doesn’t mind. Adele tells her to get him all the pancakes he can stuff his smiley face into. And it makes his face even more smiley.

She says she’s not hungry. Just needs coffee. He knows better. He heard her and Braden talking. They are struggling to make ends meet. She takes on some extra shifts. He is working harder in his carpenter’s shop. Johnny doesn’t believe her when she says she got stuffed on food at work. He asks the nice lady if it’s ok for them to have an extra plate. Adele’s eyes are on his face when he does. He looks straight at her, a little defiantly. As if saying - stop me, I dare you. She doesn’t. She watches him unfold more than half his breakfast into an empty plate and put it in front of her. He is an angel, she knows.

“I love you so much,” she can’t help saying. She reaches across the table and puts a soft hand on his face. “I love you with all my heart and with all my soul and I will never ever stop.”

He knows it. When he sees her digging into her pancakes, he reaches across the table to stroke her hand.

 

When they are done eating, she asks if he would like to come and look around where she works. Oh, he would, he would. He always wanted to.

She tells him about some of the kids. There are all kinds there. From very young to much older than him. A man comes to greet him, he shakes his hand.

“This is Johnny, my son,” Adele says and he presses his head and his face into her scrubs. He likes it when she calls him that.

“I remember,” the man says. His name is Sergey. He is the head of the unit. Johnny’s heard Adele mention him a lot. She likes him. Sergey asks if Johnny wants to see where the two of them first met.

Johnny is puzzled and looks up at Adele. She is a little worried, doesn’t know how to explain it to him. She doesn’t want to hurt him. She doesn’t want him to know how badly people treated him when he was a helpless baby.

She takes him to the most far away unit. It’s empty now. So they walk in. The equipment is all new now. Not the way it was when he was sick more than ten years ago. She tells him then. Not everything. But she tells him he was very very ill. And he almost died. But he was also very strong. And very brave. And he fought for his life harder than anyone she has ever seen. Harder than any of the other kids she’d ever cared for before. And he knows there’s been a lot of them. She takes care of everyone here. All the time. He holds her when she cries.

“But you saved me,” he whispers next to her.

She cries harder now. She hides her face and cries into his shoulder. That night was when she almost lost him. She tells him how she doesn’t know how she could ever live her life without him. She tells him again how much she loves him. He strokes her hair. And it’s the first time he says it.

“I know, mom.”

She lifts her face and stops crying, “What did you just say?”

He shrugs one shoulder, “You’re my mother.”

“Oh dear Lord,” she throws her arms around him again, laughing now. “I am. I am, my beautiful baby boy.”

He is not a baby. Far from it. But he lets her have it. He was a baby when they first met. He will always be her baby.

  


**2017**

Johnny huffs and slams his notebook against his knees. He’s not frustrated (ok, he _is_ , but not _that_ much). It’s more of an act to get his father’s attention. When there is no response, he adds a theatrical slap of his palm on the sofa and a soft (but loud enough) “Ufffff.”

For a moment he can see the iPad in his father’s hands move down a little and one of his eyebrows slowly rise. He can’t see his entire face from where he’s sitting, but he knows there is a smile somewhere behind that iPad. It’s the crinkles in the corners of the eyes. They are a dead giveaway.

“It’s _hard_ ,” Johnny answers his father’s silent “What?”. He then lifts his math book from the coffee table and lets it fall back.

“Tell me about it.” Quinn turns the screen towards him.

Johnny leans closer and reads out loud. “Introduction to String Theory,” tilting his head to the side. “What’s a string theory?”

His father’s turn to huff. And it _is_ in frustration. “Fuck if I know.” He’s been at it for over a month now. The answer is still the same.

Johnny giggles. Picks up his notebook again. Remembers how it all started. Puts it down.

They are both on the sofa, facing each other, but not really. Each struggling with his own homework. Each with his back propped against the opposite arm of the couch on large pillows, legs bent and meeting in the middle.

Johnny lifts a foot and gives his father a slight kick in a shin. Then a harder, more impatient one. “Daaaaaaaad….”

Peter lifts his arm and opens his hand, telling Johnny to _‘toss it’_ , which he does. His notebook flies across the sofa and lands decidedly and firmly in his father’s grip.

About five seconds later, it flies back. “Start again.”

“I already _did_ . I don’t _get_ it.”

“One and two thirds of ninety?”

“One hundred and fifty.”

“And you got?”

Johnny looks down. Slams his fist against his forehead, grabs an eraser and starts demolishing half a page of calculations based on one stupid mistake.

“Thanks.”

“Thanks?” Peter kicks him and pretends to toss over his iPad. “Your turn. Supersymmetry. Go.”

Johnny laughs hard. Yeah, right.

“Why do you have to study all that stuff? Every time you talk about it my head goes…” mimicking an imaginary explosion.

“Coz mom said she would only marry me when I’m back on track to go to MIT.” Quinn winks.

Skeptical frown. “But she _already_ married you.”

Teasing, half a smile. “So you think I should quit?”

Johnny thinks about it for a second, then smirks. “Nah, engineers are cool. And you _never_ quit. Plus… you _were_ on probation for like two months.”

Peter laughs. He was. She made him sweat for it. Work for it. Even though they both knew after just five days that they would end up right here.

“Studying, huh?” Julia’s voice makes them both look up towards the door to the kitchen. She turns to Johnny. “Math? Done?” She’s smiling, but her voice leaves no room for arguing.

“Almost,” Johnny sighs, and starts scribbling again.

“Hurry up. Almost bedtime.” She looks at her husband then. “String theory?”

“Still a bitch.” The god’s honest truth. He does look miserable. But determined.

“My condolences.” No mercy.

She replaces his coffee mug with a full one and leans in to drop a kiss into his hair. She squeezes between the coffee table and the sofa and they adjust their feet to make room for her to sit in the middle. The moment she does, four legs stretch happily on her knees. She rolls her eyes, but lets it go. Then lifts her own legs on top of the coffee table and opens her book.

About ten minutes into the happy silence, Peter’s phone buzzes a notification sound.

-Can talk?

He smiles and shakes his head. _Every time_. No matter how many times he’s told her she can just call. He sighs and puts the iPad on the back of the sofa.

“Carrie?” Julia smiles, turning the page.

“Yeah.” He retrieves his slippers from where they disappeared under the couch, stands up and stretches.

The moment he’s off the sofa, Julia jumps into his spot and pretends (or not) to keep reading.

“Hey!” he laughs in protest.

“It’s warm.” She grins mischievously and wiggles deeper in.

“I _know_ . And it’s _mine_.”

“ _Was_ yours. We’ll discuss the future ownership of this real-estate when you’re back. And say hi.”

As he rolls his eyes and starts to leave, her arms goes around his leg, just above the knee. He looks down, and the soft wistfulness in her eyes makes his heart skip a beat.

“Tax.” Tightening her grip and pulling down.

He crouches next to the sofa and his smile melts into hers. The way she grabs at his pullover and pushes herself up to be closer, and the small sigh she makes when he deepens the kiss just slightly, are mind-dulling to the point that he barely stops.

Before moving away, he finds her ear. “We’ll discuss the new taxing system later,” a promising whisper.

“Consider me warned… _and_ scared.” She pushes him away.

 

The kitchen is rather cold, and he adds more hot coffee to what’s already in his mug, then sits at the table and opens the dialer. Long-pressing ‘five’ is all it takes. ‘Two’ is Johnny. ‘Three’ is Julia. ‘Four’ is Max.

Every time he looks at number ‘five’ he can’t help remembering how hard it’s been, how awkward. For months after Berlin. Carrie had kept in touch with Julia. They would chat several times a week, meet for coffee even. Sometimes Julia would drag him along. He was just there for the ride. With the woman he used to be in love with, and another woman with whom he was trying to be a family again.

It crept up on them both. The ease tinted by shadows of their past. Both having new lives, struggling to make them work. Both out of place in the world, trying to find a corner to stash their baggage. In the end, finding out that they don’t need to. Because they have each other.

It started when Julia would go to the ladies room, leaving them alone. An awkward silence at first. Then a joke, a memory. Or both. Talking about it, until neither could shut up. Then wondering: how come they never talked like this before? And what it took for them both to let go.

Then there were messages. Coming at all times of day. Messages like ‘Can talk?’ or ‘Need to vent.’ Because they could now. Talk. So they did.

And in the end, there was being parents. And still is. Exchanging photos. Meeting for weekends. Johnny missing Carrie. Quinn falling in love with Franny all over again, finally giving Carrie the letters he’d written to her daughter when he was in Syria. He warned her about the language. And left it up to her to decide if she’d ever show them to Franny. Then it was Franny staying at their place when Carrie needed to travel. And even having their guest room nicknamed ‘Franny’s room’.

Carrie picks up immediately.

“I know, I know, I should’ve just called.” Her voice is cheerful, carefree. “But I just…” she laughs. “... can’t.”

“ _Try_.” Quinn smiles, sipping his coffee.

“I will, I promise. Next time.”

He rolls his eyes.

“Are you rolling your eyes and thinking ‘yeah, right’?”

“Yes. On both accounts.”

She laughs. Then there is a long pause.

“You ok?” he asks finally.

He can hear the smile in her voice. Some things never change. “Yeah. Just work. Tired.”

He works two translator jobs, then spends the rest of the evening studying at the library, studies more at home. Yeah, he _knows_ about being tired.

“Sure.”

“So…” Carrie quickly changes the subject. He usually doesn’t mind listening to her talk about work, but right now it’s too depressing. Especially in light of why she wants to talk to him. “How’s the _wife_?” She emphasizes the last word, showing off what she knows.

“Fucking Max.” He wanted to tell her himself. Max is dead meat.

“Because Islamabad just didn’t teach you _anything…_ ” Her laughter is sincere and light. It’s the first time they’ve talked about this in a joking manner. “So, tell me… how’s married life?”

Peter only now notices that he’s absentmindedly playing with his wedding band, spinning it around his finger. He looks down at it and smiles. It’s a new habit that’s growing on him.

“She still likes me… I _think_.” Then adds, “Says hi.”

“Hi back. I actually knew ahead of time. Sorry I couldn’t make it.”

He remembers that day and feels shivers running down his spine. “Shit, Carrie. I’m sure _Keane_ isn’t sorry.” When she says nothing in return, he sighs and shakes his head. “I still can’t believe you were there.”

“Yeah, well…” Carrie’s voice is low, quiet. But a moment later, it’s cheerful again. “Think of it this way… You’ll never forget your anniversary date. It’ll probably be in next year’s history textbooks.”

No shit. An assassination attempt on the President Elect?

He chuckles. “Probably.”

“Miss it?” He can hear a hint of teasing in her voice.

“No.” There is no hesitation before he answers, no doubt in his tone. But then he stops, thinks about it, wondering what she means, if she’s talking about all of it. “You mean you or the job?”

“Jesus, Quinn…” Carrie laughs. It’s not the question that amuses her. It’s the ease with which it comes. The warm feeling in her chest when she hears him ask. How simple it has become. Her tone is tentative, a little playful. “Both?”

Recalling the order in which he asked, he clarifies then. “Yes. And no.” Both true. Both very much so. “Are we still on for spring break?”

“You fucking kidding me? Franny crosses the dates off the calendar every day.”

He lifts his gaze to the flip calendar on the side of their fridge. It has more than a week crossed off by Johnny. Fucking two peas in a pod. He quickly opens his phone’s camera, snaps a picture and sends it. Barely two seconds pass and he hears Carrie laughing.

“I’m starting to get worried,” he jokes.

“I’m not.” Carrie knows what he’s talking about and her smile is wide and joyful. “Quinn and Mathison... I mean… what can possibly go wrong with _that_?”

Peter smiles now too. Nothing. In the end… absolutely nothing.

“Carrie?”

“Yeah?”

“String theory is a bitch.”

“Still have no fucking idea what it is.”

“Me neither.” He says in a surprisingly whiny voice. “And I have an exam in two weeks.”

“Well, tell you what. Fuck _you_ , Quinn. There was bound to be _something_ in this world that could bring you to your knees.” He hears her taking out a glass. _Wine_ , venturing an educated guess. “I’ll drink to string theory.”

His grin widens, becomes a tad smirky. “Carrie… you’re a shitty friend.”

“Hey, I single-handedly… ok… _almost single-handedly_ ... stopped an assassination attempt on the President Elect. You should be _proud_ to have a friend like me.”

“Fucking am.” He takes out a wine glass for himself and pours in some chilled chardonnay. Then clicks it against his phone. “To string theory.”

They drink, chat and laugh for a little while longer. Then say goodnight.

Peter is about to go back in, having put his wine glass in the sink, when the notification buzzes again. It’s a picture of Franny, a flash of auburn curls, sleepy face and a beaming smile as she opens the Christmas present they sent.

Smiling, he types a reply.

-Wow she’s grown. Hope she enjoyed it. Kiss her goodnight from us

-Will do. Same. Night, Quinn

-Night, Carrie

 

He goes back to his living room, and the rest of the world falls away.

“Where’s Johnny?” Looking at the empty space on the other side of the couch.

Julia’s eyes meaningfully point to the clock on the wall, then rest on his face. He grins. It’s ten to ten and his household is run on military time by a policewoman. So the answer to his question is most likely: packing his school bag and taking a shower before going to bed.

He sits next to her, finds Franny’s picture and switches his phone to landscape before showing it to her. Julia gasps and her face lights up with a wide smile. While she’s looking, he solves the ‘spot on the couch real-estate ownership’ problem by unceremoniously turning her to the side and lying next to her. She snuggles between his arm and his side, resting her head on his chest.

“Gosh, she’s adorable… _Jesus_... just wanna…” Letting out a low growl, she imitates trying to claw Franny out of the screen and eat her up.

Peter takes the phone from her hands and puts it on the coffee table before turning all the way towards her. With a little hustle, pushing elbows, giggling and almost tumbling off the sofa, he finally manages to lace one arm under her neck and wrap another around her waist. Her face is barely an inch from his, but he pulls her even closer.

“Want one?” he whispers, as his hand slowly creeps between their bodies, the back of his index finger gently rubbing against her tummy.

“Fuck _yeah_ ! And _right now_.”

He snorts, kissing the tip of her nose. “I don’t know _that_ trick, Jules.”

She moves her head back just enough to study his face. He’s serious. Eyes-shining-with-happiness serious.

She nods, tears of joy tingling her throat. “I do. _God_ , I do.” Then, tugging the back of his pullover, “You? I mean with your studies right now and all… we could wait a bit longer…”

His arm bends under her head until the rest of her words are muffled into his mouth. Then pulls away to whisper, “So fucking much.” And kisses her again.

  


**July, 2016**

“You’re an idiot,” Astrid says, standing next to Max at the airport. It’s five in the morning.

“Yeah, you said.” Julia hugs them both, lets them say goodbye to Johnny.

Both their passports are back in her purse. Astrid had said that it was her choice.  And she made it. She didn’t go back to the hospital, didn’t ask Max to disable the security cameras, and she didn’t kiss Quinn back.

They’re strolling through the Duty Free section, when she gets a message. Both her eyebrows shoot up when she sees the name of the sender. It’s an email:

_Dear Julia,_

_We haven’t gotten to talk much. And I don't know many things about you, or Quinn for that matter. But I wanted to tell you that although Astrid does have a point, if someone did for me what you did for him today, I’d spend the rest of my life fighting to get them back. I hope we stay in touch when we’re all back home. I’ll miss you and Johnny. You won’t know why, and maybe one day I will tell you, but getting to know you has helped me deal with something I lost some time ago. Because I’ve seen what real endurance and real courage are. And so will he. If he doesn’t already._

_Yours,_

_Max._

  


****

****

**August, 2016**

**Day 1**

Peter wakes up before his alarm goes off. About 2 hours beforehand, actually. He can’t breathe. He’s sweating, and it’s not the nightmares. It’s just hot. Too damn hot. And he’d forgotten what a dump this place actually was. Heating broken half the winter and no central air in the summer.

There’ll be no getting back to sleep, he knows. Might as well drag himself out of bed and start getting ready for work. So, yeah. And there _is_ an actual bed. An old one he found on sale. No more sleeping bags. And yeah, there _is_ actually a job. It’s his first day as an interpreter. He was offered a better position - a parting gift from Dar. He politely declined. And by politely he means… well, he tried. He told him to go fuck himself. Hopefully, for the very last time. Then opened Max’s laptop and started looking for jobs in Philly.

And yes, he’s back in Philly. Because he’s allowed to be a part of Johnny’s life now. But not Julia’s. He can’t blame her. He’s been over it in his head too many times, reaching the exact same conclusion time after time. It ended years ago.  
  
Yes, she came to him when she thought he was dead. Yes, she stayed and took care of him. Yes, she brought Johnny back into his life, something that he probably (definitely) should have t ried to do himself a long time ago. But, no, that didn’t mean she wanted that life back. Or _him_.

He would have liked to have more time to settle down. To have a more stable employment to speak of than a first day at work, to see what his studying options are. But today is the first day that he gets to see his son again. He could barely wait to let the dust of his old life settle before he made the call. He missed the first eight and a half years of his life. Then three more weeks while sorting out his exit from the agency and looking for a job. He’s done waiting. And Julia is there, part of it, part of what he wants back.

He’s scared. Terrified. Every time he thinks about seeing her again, wondering what he would do if he knocked on the door and another man opened it, not being able to breathe at the thought of her asking him to leave her for good and knowing he won’t be able to say no to that. He feels physically sick when he thinks that he might be too late.

Barefoot, he walks into the bathroom, brushes his teeth, changes and goes for a run. It’s hot and humid outside. His clothes are sticking to his body. He hates hot and humid. It reminds him of the worst places he’s been. But he forces that thought out of his mind and runs faster. Because he can. And because it’s the first time in many years that he’s starting a day knowing the phone won’t ring, a voice on the other end telling him to shit, shave, shower and leave. In two hours he’ll get dressed and drive to work. He’ll get to know new people. He’ll talk to them. Laugh with them. Have a sandwich for lunch. Maybe in the company of some coworkers. Next to a table. Or outside. The interpreter job is in the medical center. Maybe they have a park.

Thinking about it helps. It helps to not think about all the things that he _can_ do. All the things that he _did_.

And then he will contact Morrie, his old faculty advisor. In fact, he already has. Go figure. His first call the moment he landed at JFK was to a man he hadn’t spoken to in over eight years, who may not be a faculty advisor anymore, or alive for that matter. But Morrie was. Both. And he remembered Peter. And agreed to meet.

And now he’s thinking about thermodynamics. _Great_ . Fuck. No, great. Actually… No, it’s thermodynamics, so it’s definitely a _fuck_. He has a love-hate relationship with physics. And it’s about to get a hell of a lot more intense.

There’s a small park on his running route. The same route he used to take all those years ago. He stops, empties his water bottle in one go, and collapses on a bench.

He doesn't stare ahead anymore. He looks around. It’s too early. Not even dawn. Just the hint of a twilight. No one is in the park, but there will be, later. He imagines it filled with people, women with strollers, children, couples. He remembers sitting on this very bench with Julia when she was pregnant with Johnny. Thinking about how they would need to find a better place to live. But not too far from here. Because they wanted to be one of those couples walking by, with a baby in a stroller, or a toddler circling around them.

Two days ago he met up with Stevenson. The tough old bird was so happy that he teared up. They both did, actually. Stevenson had asked him just one thing, but really it was many things in one question:

“What are you gonna do now, J? Get your life back on track? Get a job? Go to school?” His tone softened. “Get Jules back? Are you going to quit fucking around and make her happy for real this time? Give her and yourself the life you motherfuckers deserve?”

Peter didn’t have to consider any of the questions separately. And he didn’t have to take his time before answering.

“Yes.” To all.

He didn't get out intending to get back with Julia. He did it for himself, on his own. But he knows now that trying to get back the family he never had is something he wants to do for himself as well.

But he's seen more death and suffering in his days than a person should be allowed to. She has always been the one thing in the world that was able to push through his darkness and make it all fade away. And then she let him go to find his own path, make his own choices, when he wanted to the least and needed to the most.

It might not happen all at once, but that’s not going to stop him from trying. Because he’s here. Where it all started. He’s out. And he’s back. He’s done waiting.

And he's even more in love with her now than he was all those years ago.

 

He shows up at Julia’s at a quarter past six. He’d stopped by his place and changed into something more comfortable, as opposed to the suit he’d worn to work and the meeting with Morrie. He’s wearing light jeans, sneakers, and a khaki t-shirt.

Julia opens the door and gives him a genuinely surprised but approving look from head to toe.

“Clean up good?” he asks, when the pause seems to be too long.

“Eh…” But she winks. And smiles.

They embrace briefly. He barely has time to take it in: her smell, the feeling of her next to him, the tickling of her hair next to his cheek, the way she leans into him when he holds her. She moves away quickly. Too quickly.

“Johnny will be back any second. He was at a sleepover.” They’d talked about it. She’s been trying to make him as familiar with Johnny’s life as she can, to ease the transition for both of them. It’s not Berlin anymore. This is home. “Joey? Remember?”

“Joey Reese. Classmate, 9 years old, 3 and a half feet tall, blonde hair,  blue eyes, freckles.” He remembers. He’s done his homework. Meticulously. “Parents Eden and Paul, Eden is a dentist, Paul is a Lawyer. They live on…”

“Got it, smartass.” Julia laughs, putting a palm on his mouth before he gets to finish. “Want some coffee? I made a fresh batch.”

He cocks his head to the side and lifts one eyebrow. She never drinks coffee this late in the day. He grins. She knows she’s busted.

“Sure.” Is all he says in the end, following her to the kitchen.

It takes more than a ‘second’ for Johnny to get back from his friend’s, so they end up chatting. He tells her about the new job. About Morrie. She remembers Morrie. There’s a wistfulness in her eyes when he mentions him. And he wants to grab it and hold on to it. Because he wants her to be wistful. He wants her to miss it. He wants her to hope. To want more. Again.

“So, your place nearby?” She asks after a while that none of them speaks and it becomes just awkward enough to fall back into the small talk.

He’s wondering whether to tell her the truth. Should he say he rents a place? That he stays at a motel? And to what end? It’s not a covert operation. It’s just life. And yet, he has no idea how it would make her feel. Knowing where he lives. Knowing that he owns the place that was once their home. Knowing that he’s owned it all this time.

He takes too long to answer. And there is probably something in the way he looks at her that gives him away. Her face twitches and her eyes well up.

“Jesus, Johnny…” She’d been calling him Peter for some time now, most of the time in Berlin and ever since. He knows why she calls him Johnny now.

“I didn’t meant to… I didn’t want to bring it up.”

“When?”

“Does it matter?” And yet it does. Somehow. “About half a year after you moved out. Used all the money I had saved for… you know. And Adele’s fund.”

She stands up and takes his empty mug, turning her back to him and heading to the counter.

“A refill?” she asks in a shaky voice.

“Jules…”

“Do you want more coffee?” she snaps, a little too hard. She rubs her face with her hand. Sighs. Her expression softens. “Do you?”

He nods, not taking his eyes off of her.

She doesn’t move, though. It all comes back. Why she moved out of that place. How it became unbearable to be there anymore. With him gone. Alone. How one morning she realised she couldn’t see his armchair now without feeling her innards being shredded by pain. She dragged it outside and left it by the dumpster. How she came back looking for it the next day, running up and down the streets, asking strangers if they’d seen anyone take it. How she came home and spent god knows how much time just standing there and looking at the empty space left where it used to be. Johnny was crying. And she couldn’t move. And that’s when she sat down and found a new place. For her new life.

They don’t talk much after that. Johnny comes home, and within minutes they are ready to leave. She reminds them again what to do, what not to do, what time to be back.

Johnny sprints downstairs, ready to leave. Peter follows, but turns around at the last minute, pulling Julia into his arms. She doesn’t resist. He holds her longer than needed for a goodbye hug. When she still doesn’t try to break free, he covers her head with his hand and kisses her hair. Then leans closer to her ear.

He’s shaking inside, literally shaking. All numb with fear. The kind of fear he’s never felt in his life, not in the darkest of holes, not on the toughest of missions. Many things can be fixed. And it’s probably not a ‘now-or-never’ moment. But it feels like one.

“Tell me you don’t love me anymore,” he whispers.

She looks up, but doesn’t move away. There is a mixture of pain and sadness in her eyes.

“And what if I _don’t_ love you anymore?”

He reminds himself to breathe. As long as she doesn’t say that she wants him to leave and never come back, that it would make her happier, he can take it, all of it. He strokes her hair and presses his lips to her forehead.

“Then I will have to make you love me again.” And he walks out.

 

It’s barely fifteen minutes after they leave when her phone buzzes. The time it took him to find the courage to send the message he typed the moment he left.

-You didn’t actually tell me you don’t love me anymore

She can’t help a smile, imagining the smug look on his face when he typed this. The keyboard is open and she thinks about her reply. In the end…

-Fuck off. And have a good time. Don’t be late

He looks at it. Both happy and terrified. He knows her. She’s like that. She can be abrupt and funny. Especially when she’s nervous. All his thoughts curl into a single word. _Fuck_.

Julia looks at his message, remembering how she felt just now when he held her, how she didn’t want him to let go. How she’d told him in Berlin that she missed the man he used to be, the one who was so daring and annoyingly charming when he pursued her the first time around. He’s being so honest with her. So has she. But not all the way. Not right now. It doesn’t have to mean they will make it. But she does have to tell him. Because it’s the truth. And because she knows how scared he is underneath this seemingly ballsy attitude.

She starts typing and it just comes out. The truest thing she can say.

-You can mark the part of making me love you again as ‘done’

And just like that the sunlight on his face feels different. Everything around him is made out of bright light. And the sky looks as big and as deep as his hope. Not even ten seconds pass and her phone buzzes again.

-I’ll pick you up tomorrow at eight

 

**Day 2**

He does. Pick her up at eight, that is. He shows up on time. Precisely on time. Because Julia has a thing about everything being on time.

She opens the door wearing a beige work pant suit. Not what he expected. Did he tell her it was supposed to be a date?

She lets him in without a word and shuts the door behind him.

“So, get this. Stevenson showed up half an hour ago and said he wanted to take Johnny to a movie. Any thoughts on how that might have happened?”

Half a shrug. “I guess he likes him. I mean, who _wouldn’t_.”

She squints her eyes and props her hands on her hips.

“Fine,” he says. “I asked him to.”

“Because…?”

“Coz... seemed like a good idea at the time?”

“To…?”

“Toooooo… take you out?”

“Aaaaand… did I agree to go out?”

It takes everything he has not to show how fucking scared he is that she actually means it.

She bursts into laughter and picks up her purse. “Jeez, you should see the look on your face.”

He mutters a “Motherfucker” under his breath, following her outside.

“So, you have a plan?” she asks, as they pass straight through the parking lot and she realises he came on foot. Which means wherever they are heading they’ll be walking there as well, and she’s in heels.

“I do.” Then, “Oh, you mean for the evening?”

“Well, yeah.” She looks puzzled. “What did _you_ mean?”

“I meant… you know… _the_ plan.”

“Okkkk. How about we start with the evening?”

“Sure. It’s a date.”

“Ah.”

“I don’t know if it counts as a first date. But it’s a date.”

“Got it. Not bad. Traditional. As opposed to… say… _sleeping in my car_.”

He laughs, remembering their _actual_ first date. “The night is still young and I’m pretty tired. So not ruling anything out.”

 

The dinner is nice. They both feel at ease enough to talk. Even joke.

They'd fallen back into their old routine during dinner. She picks the wine, he picks the appetizer, they share two entrees. They play an old game they used to play, spotting other couples in the restaurant and creating their backstories... which are out on their first dates, which are out on their last. It's familiar, comfortable. Too comfortable. As he reaches to steal a piece of her hot chocolate cake, she remembers why she ended up leaving Berlin, despite Astrid's little diversion attempt.

It’s a wonderful thing to be able to say things without using words, to know what the person you love is thinking. And it’s the damnedest thing in the world, too. Because he’s still smiling, feeling the sweetness of chocolate feeling his mouth, when he sees her eyes, and it turns bitter.

“Peter, what are you doing? What are _we_ doing?”

He sets down his spoon and takes a deep breath.

“Getting you back.” It’s the best and the most honest answer he can come up with.

“To what end?”

“Does there have to be an…”

“Yes,” she interrupts him. “There does. I don’t know what you think we’re doing here, but this isn’t just an exercise in reliving the past for me.”

“It isn’t for me either, Julia.”

“Then what is it?”

“I thought we were on the same page here. I’m trying to get you and Johnny back.”

“Get Johnny back? I’ve raised that child on my own since you left, Peter. For eight years.” She doesn’t mean for it to come out as harshly as it sounds, but something inside of her has been unleashed.

“I don’t understand,” he responds, confused. “I thought we made the decision for me to leave together. We didn’t have any choice.”

“Or did we? Yes, maybe not at first. But it’s been eight years. And you never did leave.”

“And now I have. I’ve wanted to for a long time…”

“But you never did, not until you were left with no choice. Who’s to say you won’t go back?”

“This is my life now. My work, going to school, trying to build a life with you…”

“Peter, I’m not in my twenties anymore. I _have_ a life. And it’s not just _me_ this time, it’s Johnny too. You don’t know what happened after you left. Life didn’t just go on for me. I had to regroup, rebuild. Knowing you weren’t going to come back. Never knowing whether you were alive or dead. But I survived that. I never forgot you, but I tried to move on. Then to see you on TV… I thought you were dead. It was like losing you all over again, but I’d never really _had_ you. For the entire time I’ve known you, you lived that life. You hated it, but you couldn’t live without it. You could never leave. Why is this time different? How do I know you won’t go back again?

“Because I won’t.”

“And I’m just supposed to take you at your word? What if someone comes after me again? After Johnny? What if you decide this new life of yours, work and school, is too boring? What if you cut and run again? I would survive, but what about Johnny? What about you? I don’t think I can see you go through all of that again.”

“So what you’re saying is you don’t trust me.”

“I’m saying I don’t know. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know why I don’t know what I want. God, this just feels so right, so… inevitable. But there’s a part of me that sees warning lights flashing and flashing. That’s screaming at me not to let it go further.”

“And there is part of me that’s screaming not to let this go. You’re right, Julia. I left before. And I never came back. And I’ve regretted it every day since. I didn’t think I had a choice. I’m still not sure I did. But I’m making a choice now. I don’t want to live a life of killing people. I don’t want to live a life of waiting till I’m the one who gets killed. And I don’t want to live a life of regrets. A few months ago, I nearly died. And I had hours, alone, to think over my life. I have so many regrets, things I did, things I never did, things I never said. And you, you and Johnny, you were my biggest regret, but also my biggest joy. And in that time, waiting to die, all those thoughts…”

“But I don’t want you to live your life for us. That’s too much pressure, Johnny. I don’t know if I can do that again. I can’t be all that for you.”

“Yeah, I see that now. And that’s the thing… I don’t just want this life with you, or for you. I want this life for me. I’m done, Julia. I’m just done with the bullshit. I’m not going to let anyone make choices for me. I want you and Johnny in my life more than anything. And if I can’t have it, if you don’t want it too, I’ll have to live with that. Not run from it, but live with it. And that’s what’s different this time.”

There he goes. He’s going to say it. And that’s going to be it. One way or another. He will know. It’s not just his mind that’s numb anymore, it’s all of him.

“Jules…” his throat is shut and his voice is almost inaudible when he finally speaks again. “I mean it. If you don’t want it, I’ll understand. You owe me nothing. For all the reasons you’ve said. But if you do, if you let me… You won’t have to take me at my word. You’ll know it. And I’ll fucking make sure every day that you know it. Just…” Suddenly he can’t bear the look in her eyes any longer and lowers his. But then he forces his gaze up again. Because he needs to, wants to. “Please… let me.”

It takes everything she has, all her willpower and self-control to not leap across the table into his arms and drag him home with her. Also, _knowing_ them, they probably wouldn’t even make it home. Because she fucking does love him. More than she did years ago. More than she thought possible to love another person. She would take him even if she knew four years from now it would end the same. Just to have him again. To be happy like that again. But she is not alone anymore. _They_ are not alone anymore. She can’t have Johnny go through what _she_ went through. And she wants more. She wants a home. More children. More of him.

Even before she moves, before she says anything, it’s that damndest thing again - her eyes, the way they change, the way they don’t look at _him_ anymore, not even _through_ him, but _into_ him. They are like a burning flame, scorching the ice of his fear, dissipating it so fast that he melts along with it and for a moment isn’t sure if he can sit straight anymore or is about to slump down, all of him.

But she doesn’t say anything.

Slowly, she reaches across the table, picks up his spoon, scoops some of her cake, some ice-cream and stuffs it into his mouth.

Sweet. It’s all sweet again: the taste of her dessert, the way he looks, unable to move, just sitting there with the spoon sticking out of his mouth, the way she laughs, throwing her head back, the way he knows that what he wants more than anything in the world right now is a chance to make her laugh like that every day.

“ _Izh ‘at a yesh?_ ” he slurs around the spoon.

 

**Day 3**

He comes to pick up Johnny at the usual time. But Johnny is not ready to go. In fact, he promptly informs his father that his mother said they were staying in tonight and having dinner together.

Peter looks at Julia, who’s leaning against the kitchen door, her arms crossed on her chest. She lifts both eyebrows in a silent _‘You have a problem with that?’_. What he feels lies somewhere in between wanting to scream and going up to the roof to dance in the moonlight. He does neither, though, and simply shakes his head.

“Lasagna,” she says then, disappearing back and leaving them alone in a hallway.

Johnny and Peter look at each other, both shrug, both smile. Then go into Johnny’s room first, where Peter gets to see all the Star Trek posters, as well as Star Wars posters (and bed sheets), The Lord of the Rings posters, Battlestar Galactica posters… long story short, he gets to see his little nerd’s room, kick back on his bed and listen to all the stories Johnny can think of about school, the books he’s read recently, his favourite movies, all in no particular order.

Later they watch Deep Space Nine, in the only fashion that Johnny will agree to- from the beginning. In fact, he originally suggests they start from The Original Series and go through The Next Generation all the way to DS9. But all and all, calculating the time it would take to finish eleven seasons of more than twenty episodes each, not counting the movies, they decide that Peter will catch up on his own. Which scares him a little, all things considered. But he knows he will.

They eat dinner at the living room table. It’s loud and funny. From time to time they catch Johnny stealing wistful looks at both his parents. That’s when they look at each other. And smile a little.

Right before it’s time for Johnny to go to bed, he begs to watch another episode. Julia is not happy about it: bedtime, military schedule and all. But before she has a chance to protest, she feels Peter’s hand on her wrist. She sighs deeply and lets it go. _But just for this once._

They crowd on the sofa and watch together. Johnny gives his ‘director’s cut’ commentary. They all discuss it and chat. Until Peter notices that Julia’s grown quiet. He looks at her, but she doesn’t look back, deliberately avoiding his eyes. And he can see her chest rise and fall heavily as her breathing becomes faster and more irregular. His throat dries up in an instant. He doesn’t know what to do now. Move away? So their shoulders and hips are not touching anymore? Would that make it worse? Better? Put his arm around her? He knows what he _used_ to do when she’d get like that. Because… fuck… he knows why.

 

**Day 4**

They go on a date again, late at night, having spent time with Johnny and kissing him goodnight. It’s the first time they do it together. Julia sits on Johnny’s bed, while he crouches next to it. Overwhelmed, Johnny can’t hold it in anymore and jumps up, leaping into his mother’s arms. He turns around and grabs his father’s shirt, trying to pull him in for a group hug.

 _Fuck, Johnny, I love you to death, but don’t do that_ , he thinks, gently removing his son’s hand and putting it back around his mother, then stroking his back. Julia grabs his arm. Their eyes meet, and he can feel her drawing him in.

“C’mere,” she mouths.

And when she does, he feels dizzy. He can screw up what he’s trying to build with her, he knows, but she will never throw him out of his son’s life. Slowly, he crawls into their arms, throws his around the both of them. Kisses both their heads. And prays she doesn’t look up to see the real tears in his eyes.

They don’t go to a restaurant this time. And, having sensed this wasn’t the plan, she foregoes high heels. In fact, she doesn’t dress up at all. She wears no makeup, an old pair of worn jeans, simple tricot top, her hair down. When he sees her, he gasps for air.

Julia’s sister comes over to babysit. And they walk downstairs in silence tinted with bliss.

They walk around. At some point he takes her hand and she doesn’t remove it. Without noticing, they get closer to where he lives now. He tries to change the route, but it’s too late. She pulls on his hand, and five minutes later they stand next to the huge city block that used to be their home. She looks at their window, his window now, and her eyes glisten, a transparent layer of tears reflecting the street lights. His heart breaks, then mends on its own, then breaks again and again.

“Wanna come up?” Before he finishes the sentence he hears how it sounds and regrets it.

But he lets out a sigh of relief when he sees that she knows he didn’t mean it like that. She shakes her head.

“I can’t.”

 

**Day 5**

Julia follows him. She arranges for Johnny to go on a sleepover the day before and wakes up at four in the morning. She drives over to his place, but keeps her distance.

She follows him as he takes his morning run, stops by the park, sits on their bench, then runs back.

She follows him to work. He’s translates in both Arabic and German. He never takes a break. He’s attentive to the clients, to his superiors, to the other people who work there. He’s there on time and clocks out when he’s due.

She follows him to Penn. He meets with Morrie at the university coffee shop, opens his laptop and they talk for about an hour. She doesn’t hear about what. But she can see Peter writing things down, making calendar entries.

He goes to Penn’s library and spends two hours studying something without lifting his eyes. He seems to struggle, gets more books, looks up things online, listens to a lecture. He makes notes on his laptop, keeps gulping down coffee. Then his phone buzzes with what seems to be an alarm. She looks at her watch. He has just enough time to go home, change, and come to see Johnny.

That’s when she knows. Sees it. One day. Minutes and hours around relentless work. The most important mission of this man’s life. From dawn to dusk. To get what he never had. To be what he once wanted. For himself, for his son, for her. She doesn’t need to see if he still keeps at it a year from now. She knows him.

She sneaks outside and takes a spot on the bench near his parked car. Then takes out her phone and starts typing.

He feels the vibration in his pocket as he’s walking out of the library. His heart flips and squeezes when he sees her name. Well, it’s not _exactly_ her name that he had in his contacts. It reads “Fucking Breathtaking”.

-I hate you

He smiles. Keeps walking. With every step he walks faster. Then he sees her and stops.

“I do,” she says, trying to look serious, but barely holding back a smile. “I fucking hate you.”

His grin widens. He extends a hand and she jumps off the bench and takes it.

They don’t go to his car. They just walk. For a long time. She calls her sister and asks her to stay with Johnny.

They don’t stop, don’t talk. When they get closer to their favourite park, she feels his thumb rubbing against the back of her hand and looks up. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask anything, but she knows he’s waiting for an answer.

She can feel a smile curling at the corners of her lips.

“You’re on probation.”

Three words. She says three words and his throat dries up. _Jesus-fucking-christ_ , three words, barely a smile, and he can’t even breathe, can’t even squeeze her hand. She does it for him, as she leans closer to his arm just briefly and presses her lips to his shoulder. All the things he wants to do, say, dissolve into that feeling.

They keep walking in silence, both knowing where they are heading. They stop at the entrance to his building when he finally finds his voice again. He swings her around.

“Name the terms.”

She does.

“I want this. _You_. But I still need more time. I don’t know why and I don’t want to try and figure it out or explain it to you. But I do need time and you’ll have to let me have it. I want to see you keeping your job and studying. I want more kids. I won’t marry you until you’re back on track to go to MIT. I want you to sell this place.” She motions up with her eyes.

All he can think about is the following:

  1. He will give her all the time in the world and he doesn’t care why she needs it. He needs time too. He doesn’t want to start a life before he leaves Syria, and Lebanon, and Iraq, and Iran, and Berlin. Probably most of all Berlin.  
Prazosin helps. Therapy… he’s just started. But it’s not just the nightmares. He doesn’t want to look at his son and remember a mother wailing over the body of a boy his age after a bombing in Syria. He will never forget it. Any if it. But he needs more distance. He doesn’t want his family to touch that too closely. 
  2. Every day is a gift. New imagery. New memories. Slowly, they flood his thoughts and replace what has been. Some of it will never go away. But most of it has to.  
He will give her the time she needs. And they will work through the rest together.
  3. He loves his job, he loves to study, for the first time ever he’s alive for real, and it’s not just for her or Johnny, it’s what _he_ feels, what _he_ needs.
  4. All the _work_ he’s going to do to make more kids (which dulls his mind and unevens his breathing).
  5. She _will_ marry him (much like the previous one, it’s a recurrent thought that he keeps circling back to).
  6. Luckily, he’s already sold the place.



But mostly… as determined as he was to try and get his family back, if she asked him, if he knew it would make her happy, he would leave and never bother her again. And yet, all she’s asking for is what he wanted to give her more than anything in the world.

“Five days,” he whispers.

She lifts an eyebrow. “Five days?”

He nods, squeezing her hand. “Both times. It took me five days.”

He pulls her after him then, not asking anymore if she wants to come up. She doesn’t protest.

The place is almost empty. There is a bed next to the wall. A small table, a chair, some books on the window sill.

And there is their old lazy boy armchair in the corner, where it used to be.

Her hand slips from his and clasps at his shirt.

He draws her close, wraps his arms all around her, presses her face to his chest and hides his in her hair.

“Did you really think I would let you throw it away?”

He’s talking about the chair. And then they both realise that he really isn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NikitaSunshine, you've made me so happy. I'll even quote Mulder for this occasion: "You've kept me honest, you've made me a whole person. I don't even know if I want to do this anymore without you..." And LUCKILY I won't have to. Thank you. For everything. And for the honor of being a co-creator of this story. For fucking with my head in the best way imaginable. You're awesome and too cool for school.
> 
> To Violiko, you've put so much work into this, you've amazed me to no end... again!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
> 
> To Gnomecat, it's your sweetness that keeps me going sometimes, just the light in you, being truly receptive of this, being truly open. Your ability to see beyond what many of us wanted, and enjoy just the fact that a happy ending is a happy ending. And love is just love. 
> 
> And to Quinn. Who seriously fucked up with out heads. But we love him.


	8. Random Acts of Kindness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the middle of a melancholic week, busy with work, I was about to start this chapter with the end of Quinn's backstory and go into the tragic events of the present. But for some reason one day I stopped to think that there is a main character in this story that never got a backstory of her own. We have a relationship between Julia and her superior officer which seems to be very close and go way back, and we have a strained relationship between her and her mother mentioned. So, Julia deserved at least a peek into what her life has been like, how she was shaped to be the woman she has become, to those she loved, to her friends.
> 
> Also, I've recently re-watched the movie Serendipity, so I guess I was under the influence. Oops.

**1991, Baltimore**

The last time he gets to hold Adele’s hand is when he is fourteen years old. Lizzy is nine. She is beautiful. And he loves her more than a real older brother ever could. 

That morning, Lizzy wakes him up. It’s spring break and  they’re both out of scho ol. Adele is still at work. Braden is in his woodshop, working. Just the two of them in the house. They are old enough to be left alone now. But they are still silly and giggly around each other. They always will be. Always. He hasn’t read to her in a long time. She can read on her own now. And she does - alot. They both read. The house is full of books, old and new. During the winter, Adele makes hot cider with cinnamon sticks. They all cuddle up together on the sofa and read in silence. Sometimes they start arguing about something they’ve read. And it gets loud and funny. 

Every night before Lizzy goes to sleep , Johnny still spends time in her room. He sits next to her as she dozes off. They talk for a long time. Chatter non stop. They laugh all the time. It’s a quiet life they all lead. Normal and happy.

Adele is the head nurse now. The money is better. Johnny helps Braden in the shop. He has good hands, Braden says. He’s good, patient, and creative. And they make enough to always have anything they need. Also, they don’t need that much. Maybe that’s why it works. They even saved enough money to finally have a family vacation. They are going to Ireland this summer, all of them, to visit whatever relatives Braden and Adele still have there. To visit their grandparents’ graves. And to see the Emerald Island that is the heart of their lives. The heart of every Irishman’s life. Johnny is thinking about going to college in Dundalk. His aunt, Adele’s sister, lives there. And she really wants him to come. He is dreaming about it, about seeing Ireland, maybe living there for a while. The Quinns are Irish. So are the Sullivans. But it’s really the Quinn part of him that wants to go. And it’s the same part that wants to stay here, with his family. He can’t see himself one day away from home. 

A couple of months back, Adele and Braden sat down with him and told him that, as much as none of them cared for any official document (because he was their son and would always be), they would like to adopt him if it was ok with him. He really didn’t know how to respond to that. He knew he was too old to cry now. But he kind of did anyway. They all hugged him then. Even Lizzy, who was eavesdropping at the door the whole time. He said he would like to change his name, too. 

“Why, love?” Adele kissed his tear stained cheeks. “Johnny is a beautiful name. And you don’t have to be a Quinn for us. You’re the light in our hearts, it doesn’t matter what your name is.”

“But I want to,” he said, kissing her hand, then her palm. “Plus, you all keep calling me Peter anyway.”

“So, Peter Quinn?” Lizzy jumped onto his knees and wrapped her slim arms around his neck. 

“Peter Quinn,” he grinned and rubbed his nose against hers. 

 

So, Adele is still at work. And she will be for a while. They had plans to go celebrate later on, as their lawyer had informed them yesterday that it was just a matter of a few formalities before the adoption is officially done. But then Adele’s work interfered. They are planning to surprise her by meeting her at the hospital when her shift is over and taking her to a celebratory breakfast at that diner they all like so much. For pancakes. And coffee. 

They all call him Peter all the time now. And not because he’s Peter Pan, but because he is Peter Quinn. He hasn’t officially changed his name yet, but he adores it already. It comes so easy. And it feels like everything he has ever wanted to be. His whole life lies ahead of him. It’s simple. And normal. He wants to study engineering. Maybe. His guidance counselor tells him he might even get into MIT. It’s all still a distant future. But it’s a possibility. Life is full of them. Possibilities are what love is made of. Or  maybe it’s the other way around. 

He wakes up to Lizzy is staring at him. He can always feel it. He tells her he hates it when she does that. And he kinda does. But she can’t stop. And he is ok with that. He opens one eye and lets out a long sigh. She jumps on his bed. There is a cereal bowl in her hands, and she’s chewing loudly. She has cute morning hair. He’ s splayed out on his front. Covering his head with a pillow. He knows it’s a futile exercise. But he does it anyway.

Her fingers are cold against his neck as she tickles him, giggling.

“Liz,” he grumps against the mattress. “Butt off.”

“C’mon, you know I won’t.” Always the same answer. And always true. 

He waits patiently. Waiting for his tactical advantage. For her to let down her guard. Minutes pass. Then in one swift motion he flips to his back, grabs her bowl and, before she can scream, sticks a spoonful of cereal into his mouth.

“Eww… Eww… Eww,” she screams, trying to take it back, battling his evasive maneuvers. “Go get your own.”

They are both out of breath from laughing when he finally gives it back to her. She puts it on the table and splashes on the bed next to him, side to side, her head on his shoulder, his arm around her. He’s fourteen, tall and slender. His arms are strong now. His voice is one of a man. She is tiny for her age. They are still two peas in a pod. 

“We should get ready. Dad said we’ll be leaving in half an hour.”

“Mphhhhh… mmm-hmm,” he kisses the top of her head. “As soon as you get the fuck off of me.”

Oh, they all curse quite a lot. Adele doesn’t believe in bad words. She thinks people are hypocrites for swearing when their children are not around. Everyone grows up eventually. Everyone curses. It’s just a way of expressing yourself. It’s just another word. Braden is not so sure. But the kids agree.

Peter swears. He often wonders if he feels closer to Adele when he does. He also drinks coffee now. Black, no sugar. He loves his mother, her language, her smell, her hands, her bravery. She saved his life many times. She is his light in the world. 

“I am not getting off of you,” Lizzy laughs, and rolls on top of him now. 

“Yeah you are.”

“And you’re not going to tickle me.”

“Yeah I am.”

He does and she flies off of him, running for the door. He jumps up and leaps after her. They run around the house, giggling and screaming. Braden comes in and tells them to stop and get ready. He’s not mad at all. He’s smiling. 

 

Adele is tired, but happy. They all sit at the booth in the diner and  place their orders . She tells them about her shift. She asks how things are at home. Peter is next to Adele, Lizzy across from him, kicking him under the table, ignoring his menacing looks. She steals all the strawberries off his plate and stuffs her mouth with them. He lets her. 

They were a normal family. Life is full of normal. They weren’t heroes, or celebrities, or rich. They did have an extraordinary love shining through every look they ever shared, every word they ever said. Even the ‘f’ word. They didn’t die heroes. They died normally. In what the police called later a ‘random act of violence’.

There is nothing random about an act of violence when it takes away everything you ever loved and wanted. The bullets that hit your family are never normal. It seems like that to other people. To the police. But it wasn’t random for Peter Quinn. There were people, boys really, who came and took his loved ones away from him. He will never forget. Nor forgive. 

They said later it was a robbery attempt gone sour.  _ Sour  _ was not a word Peter would use. 

Adele sees it first. There are a group of four teenagers at the cash register. They argue in loud voices. One of them reaches  for something behind him. That’s when she knows. The first thing she does is to push Peter under the table. She is very strong and manages to stuff the whole nearly six feet of him down and under before he even understands what’s happening. When he tries to get back up, she pleads, “Stay down, love.” It’s the last thing she says to him. Ever. Seeing it too now, Braden pushes Lizzy down as well. And that’s when the shots come. People screaming, running, chairs falling, glass breaking. Peter covers Lizzy with his body, presses her to the floor, so that she’s completely underneath him. He doesn’t know yet that he’s too late. He’s just happy she doesn’t object. Or move. He whispers to her. Calms her down.

Time slows down, to the point it seems to stop . The only thing that’s left is the gunfire. So many shots. They don’t stop. There is a smell in the air that he will never forget. It’s the first time he ever smelled so much of it. Metallic. Blood, he knows. This is what blood smells like. It’s thicker than water when you love your family. It flows on top of him, when he’s under the table, easily, just like water, when his family is gone. 

The shooting stops as the police rush in. People start crying. Screaming. But he doesn’t. “Liz,” he whispers, pulling himself off of her. Then he sees her. Her beautiful eyes are staring at him. Wide open. Her silky blond hair is sticky under his palm, patches of red. “Liz… Liz…” he keeps calling for her, whispering, nearly voiceless. “Liz!!!” he screams at the top of his lungs. No sound comes out. His throat is shut. His vision turns darker.

He looks around him from under the table. Braden has fallen to his side. Shot through the heart. His eyes are closed. His face peaceful as ever. 

“Dad,” Peter cries, reaching for his face, touching it, stroking it. 

As he  rises , he feels Adele’s arm touching his shoulder. He swings around. Adele is still sitting up, but her blood is streaming all over him. Her hand is lifelessly hanging. She probably reached for him. One last time. To hold his hand. 

He takes Adele’s hand. It’s warm and soft as ever. It’s free of blood. He can’t find a pulse. She’d taught him how to check for pulses everywhere. He doesn’t need to check everywhere. All he needs is her hand. In his. This is the hand that pushed against his heart once. Saved his life. It’s the hand that held him when he had nightmares. It’s the hand that held his hand, to this day, even though he was all grown up. Just because she knew he liked it so much. 

He puts it against his face, his cheek. He kisses it, long sobbing kisses. He whispers things, words in between those kisses. Most of it is incoherent, even in his mind. But some of it is clear. He whispers, ‘I love you’, over and over. He whispers, ‘mom’.

Time passes. He doesn’t know how long. The police have closed the place down. No one can see him. Or Lizzy. The coroner is not here yet. Maybe they think he is dead, too.  And maybe he should be. 

He looks at Lizzy again and he can’t breathe anymore. He pulls her up. Her head falls back and he holds it with his palm. He presses it against his neck. Then he stops crying. He turns around, taking Lizzy with him. He lies down on the floor, his head against the wall. He makes sure Lizzy is comfortable on his chest. He holds her arms to keep them falling off of him. He  _ never  _ wants her to get off of him again. He wants her right here. For always. He rubs her back. His arms are strong around her little body. He wants to keep her safe still. He would like to sing that Adele’s lullaby now, though he doesn’t have Adele’s singing voice. He remembers Peter Pan by heart - he has read it to her so many times- so he starts reciting it from memory. His eyes close. He’s back in her bedroom, like the first time he sat on her bed, and all the other times, too. He reads for her. It’s all he can do. Reading always calmed him down. He reaches for Adele’s hand again. He holds it. Time passes. He will never get up. Never leave them. 

How come there wasn’t a bullet for him, too? He is a Quinn. His name is Peter Quinn. He should have a bullet of his own. Maybe… one day… he will. He passes out. His hand drops from Adele’s. It’s all quiet now. 

  
  
  


**1991, one day later, Philadelphia**

Martin grouchily gets up from his chair near the dinner table and drags himself outside, following his mother’s plea (not so much of a plea, actually, seeing how it sounded more or less like “I don’t care where that girl is. If she’s not here in five minutes, she’ll go hungry. She’s the Lord’s punishment to me for all my sins”). Martin and Isabella both let out a long sigh and roll their eyes, while their younger sisters, Anna-Sofia and Daniela just giggle.

“I’ll find her.” Martin puts on his jacket and walks out.

It’s not difficult. He knows exactly where ‘Lord’s punishment for all his mother’s sins’ is. He passes two neighbors’ houses and stops by an old tall tree in the cul de sac. 

He can’t see his sister, but he knows she’s up there.

“Mamma’s pretty mad,” he calls out.

There’s a long silence. They both know she’s up there, hiding in the higher branches. He once tried to take her down by force. It didn’t end well. 

“She’s always mad,” a high pitched girl’s voice replies angrily. “I don’t care.”

“Well, I do. And everyone is waiting for you.”

“Tough tomatoes.” God knows where she picked up that phrase, but she’s been driving everyone nuts, having added it to her lexicon, which was never to their mother’s liking to begin with.

“Get your ass down here or I’m coming up to get you.” It’s an empty threat and he knows it. And what’s worse, so does she.

“Ha!  _ That _ would be a fun one to watch again.”

“Julia… please. It’s hard on everyone. I’m so sick of the two of you fighting all the time.”

“Then fuck off, Marty.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“Why not? I like it.”

“Mamma doesn’t. And it’s a bad example for the girls.”

“She’s a bitch. And I don’t give a shit what she likes.”

“She’s your mother. And she loves you.”

“You’re such a kiss-ass.” He can hear her giggling. “And she hates me. I heard her tell dad she wishes she never had me. And that her  _ Lord _ w as punishing  her when she had me.”

“She said no such a thing. And if she did, it was probably because you’d made her mad again. Or refused to go to mass.”

“She did too! And mass is boring. I hate it.”

“Why do we always argue about it? This is our church, people know us there, ma wants to have her whole family there, because people talk… you know? It’s embarrassing to her when you don’t show. She keeps making excuses for you.”

“Well, fuck her. She’s a hypocrite. She’s a bad person and she keeps going to them confessions and asking for forgiveness. And you know why.” Julia’s voice is angry now. “The Lord will  _ never  _ forgive her for what she does.  _ And _ there  _ is _ no  _ Lord _ . People just make it up so they can clear their conscious and then go home and beat their kids again. I ain’t doing that.”

“Julia, she doesn’t mean to…”

“Right!” she interrupts him. “She broke my arm she twisted it so hard.”

“Oh Jesus…” Martin remembers now: he had just gotten home from college this morning and found his sister with a cast. “How did you manage to get up that tree anyway?”

There’s a car approaching from behind him. It parks no more than ten feet away, and Martin can hear the branches above his head groaning and creaking. With a soft thump his sister jumps down. She has leaves in her hair, on her red overalls. She’s covered with dust and sticky resin. 

Without even looking at her brother, Julia sprints towards the car, and the man stepping out of it smiles, shakes his head at her appearance, but opens his arms for her nevertheless.

“ Evening , Mr. Stevenson,” Marty greets him.

The man in a police uniform waves back. “ Evening , Marty. Been back long?”  He barely has a chance to respond before Julia crashes into him and knocks the wind out of him. “Hey, squirrel,” calling her by his nickname, bestowed on her for climbing every tree in the district. “Why you out so late? Ain’t it dinner time?”

Without looking at her brother, as if he has ceased to exist, Julia buries her face deeper into her friend’s uniform.

“Not hungry. And was waiting for you to get back from Baltimore.” She lifts her face and her black eyes flash with concern. “Was it as bad as they said on the news?”

“Yeah,” he nods, picking leaves from her silky braids. 

Martin  had heard about th e horrors of the day before. He recalls that Andrew Stevenson had moved to Philadelphia after losing his son and wife to a hit-and-run in Baltimore. His best friend was on the news, in charge of the diner-shooting investigation. 

“How bad?” Martin comes closer.

Andrew looks exhausted, his face sunken, his brown eyes surrounded by dark circles. He’s probably been up ever since.

“Nineteen dead, seven wounded, one critical. Doesn’t look like he’s gonna make it.”

He looks down at Julia, his brave little friend, the first one to welcome him to the neighborhood when he had moved in, and his best ‘pal’. He doesn’t like talking about things like that with or in front of her. She’s tough as nails, but she’s a child. 

“Are you going back tomorrow?” she  asks .

“Will have to.” He absentmindedly puts a hand over her head. “The investigation is ongoing, Ricky needs help. And one of the victims was someone we both knew, apparently. The funeral is tomorrow. I’d like to go.”

Julia’s face twitches with sadness. “Your friend? Died?” Her dark eyes narrow with compassion.

“Someone I knew from way back, yeah. So did his wife and daughter.”

She doesn’t know what to say. As social encounters go, Julia is pretty awkward. But she throws her arms around her friend’s waist and holds him tight. She’s really small for her age, very slim. But she has the strength in her to care for everyone. 

Andrew still remembers the first time they met. He’d been waiting for the movers, sitting on his new front porch, when a kid, barely five years old rolled into his front yard on a bike that was way too large for her size, jumped off of it, let it drop on the grass and came closer. She asked if he was their new neighbor, motioning to the house next door, where she, apparently, lived. When he said that it would seem so, yes, she asked if he had any kids she could play with. She also said she hoped he had sons, because ‘girls bored her’. He told her that, in fact, he used to have a son. His name was Oliver. And he had just died with his mother in a car accident. The expression on her little face shifted from curious to mortified. She was quiet for a long while, as they just looked at each other. Then she asked if he needed a hug. He did. But he managed to give her a sad smile and shake his head with a ‘no, I’m good’. He’d just moved into the neighborhood and was not going to get a reputation as a stranger who hugs little girls. This never seemed to bother little Julia. She crawled onto the porch, sat next to him, and put her tiny arms around him, her cheek coming to press against his elbow.

He’s watched this girl grow up. He doesn’t like her family. There’s something strange going on in that nice house, among those churchgoing people. Two of the eldest left home for college as soon as they could. Isabella is a lawyer, Martin is studying medicine. The younger ones are good catholic girls, very quiet and polite, good students, the light of their parents’ eyes. All except the ‘black sheep’ in the family. She’s constantly bruised, running away and hiding out for hours. Andrew always suspected some form of physical abuse. And he’s tried to get an admission out of her for years. But Julia never tells. She always has an excuse. Which, he admits, sometimes is true. She’s a tomboy. She falls off of things all the times. And to take action, he needs a more solid evidence. And there’s also the fact that no other kids have ever shown any signs of having been beaten. So he figured it’s a ‘not sparing the stick’ situation in a devout catholic household. Still abuse in his books. But he can’t prove it. And can’t do anything about it.

That’s why he keeps an eye on her. While she thinks she’s the one keeping an eye on him. She keeps running away and hiding up that tree waiting for his police car to come to a stop when he’s back home at the end of the day. She gets in trouble for that. Time after time. And he begs her to stop. But she’s a stubborn little girl with a warped perception of friendship and loyalty. She knows he’s a lonely soul who needs a friend. He knows she’s a lonely child who needs a parent without a stick in their hand. Somehow, they make it work. 

 

The next day he’s n early made it to  Baltimore, when he hears a rustling sound from behind his back. He knows without looking. He also knows the funeral starts in fifteen minutes, and he won’t have time to drive back to Philly. She will get in trouble for this when she gets home… and it makes him both angry and heartbroken.

“Jules, get out from under there,” he commands, in a voice that leaves no room for discussion.

She’s small enough to have hidden on the floor partially under the back seat.  With a bit of struggle and numb limbs, cursing at her casted arm, Julia finally emerges and sits like a normal person. Andrew gives her a discontented look in the rearview mirror. She just crosses her arms (as much as it’s possible with the cast and all) on her chest and stares back defiantly.

“Why do you keep doing that? You  _ know _ your mamma will be mad.”

She purses her lips and shrugs. “She’s always mad at me anyway.”

“Because you always do shit like that! I’ve  _ told _ you, you can’t come with me. And here you are.”

“Well, I wanted to come. You seemed sad.”

“Jesus Christ, of course I am sad. Lots of people died in a stupid shootout, families gone, families broken apart, my best friend is nowhere near catching the shooters. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be even sadder tomorrow when your mom beats the crap out of you.”

_ Go for it, Jules, deny it. Tell me again how you fell off of that tree and broke your arm.  _

“Pfffff… beat me? Are you crazy? She wouldn’t  _ dare _ . She just yells and hisses. She’s never laid a hand on me. She couldn’t hurt a fly. I already told you.” She stares out the window now, stealing cautious looks at the mirror. 

“Right.” Andrew sighs, his heart breaks all over. Seeing the abuse victims protect their abusers always gets to him. “Just cut the crap, Jules. Just tell me. You know I can do something about it.”

“Like what? Take me away from home? Put me in foster care? Thanks but no thanks.”

“Well, you can’t come live with me.” They have talked about it. It’s impossible. For many reasons. 

“I know.” She looks away again. “So leave it alone. She’s a bitch, is all. I can take it.”

_ Fucking twelve-year-old who can take it. Fucking sixteen-year-olds with semi-automatic guns. Fucking world. _

He can’t take arguing with her. His eyes soften when they meet hers in the rearview mirror again. 

“So, ice-cream later? I know a great italian place not far from the cemetery.”

She has one of the most beautiful smiles he’s ever seen. It’s bright and happy, despite everything she’s been through. He can see her nod and wink. Then he stops by the side of the road and waits for her to climb into the front seat next to him. They high-five and he drives on.

 

Andrew had warned  Julia not to wander off too far. Right. Like that would work. Before she knows it, she’s climbing the hill on the cemetery grounds, heading towards a patch of tall trees. There are four funerals going on at the same time, too many people. She hates crowds and so always likes to watch from afar, and she needs to get higher up.

None of the trees have low branches for her to use as leverage to start climbing. She might just have to do it the straight up way, which is tricky with one arm disabled. But she knows she’ll try anyway. She looks up now, circling the tree of her choice, c onsidering whether or not the most easily reached branch will be enough to support her weight. 

She adjusts her hold of the trunk and is trying to find a good indentation for her foot to give her an initial push, when she hears a  voice from behind. It startles he r so much that she falls backwards, landing on her butt.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Julia jumps up, not even bothering to swipe off the dry leaves and dust from her red overalls, then swings around. There is a boy sitting under one of the trees. He doesn’t get up when she looks at him, just eyes her incredulously with a hint of amusement.

“You’ll never make it with the cast,” he says, motioning to her arm. 

She comes closer. He’s older than she is, seems much taller, too. He has nice clothes, but they are dirty and stained with blood all over. So are his neck and his face. He’s sitting on the ground, his back to the trunk of a tree, his legs bent and arms thrown around his knees. There’s blood on his sneakers, too. It’s dry. His dark hair is dusty and full of dry leaves. Julia wonders if he’s slept here, on the ground. Was he in the diner? Did he lose anyone? Someone being buried now? His eyes are… not really sad. Just kind of empty. They are pale blue , corners drawn down. His mouth is drawn down as well.

As Julia steps closer, blocking the sun, he looks up and sees an image surrounded by a soft yellow glow. She’s much smaller than he is, about Lizzy’s size, but older. She has kind dark eyes and two long braids of silky black hair, one behind her back and one up front. Her features are soft, delicate. Her face is beautiful and so expressive, full of compassion, that for a short while he just keeps staring. He knows what  _ he _ must look like to  _ her _ . And, frankly, he doesn’t care. He just wants her to leave him alone, let him be by himself. 

“What?” he snaps, when she doesn’t stop staring at him too. “Are you lost?”

Instead of answering, she turns around and sits down next to him. Now her head is tilted so she can still look at him. 

“Are  _ you _ ?”

_ Yes _ , he thinks. But he doesn’t say it. Instead, he motions to her broken arm again.

“What happened?  _ Fell off a tree _ ?” He’s being sarcastic and she nods in acknowledgement.

Then she laughs. “Actually, from a fence.”

His eyebrows rise and fall and there’s a small lopsided smile in one corner of his lips. “I see a pattern.”

“Yep.” Julia stretches her legs forward and leans back, using her good palm to support her weight. She tilts her face up to the sun, closing her eyes. 

Damn she looks peaceful, happy and beautiful. One of those kids who have a good life. Like the one he’d had just two days ago. She reminds him of Ronnie, a girl in his class, one he used to have a crush on last year. The joy dissipates the moment he thinks about school. It’s still spring break. And when it’s done, he’s never going back. There’s no more home, no more school. And he’s not going back in the system. He’s had a good six years of life that was never meant to be his. It’s all over now. He looks down at the people gathering around the two big coffins and one small one. There’s Adele’s father, her sisters, even the one from Dundalk. Braden didn’t have any close relatives left. 

“Were you there?” The voice next to him jolts him back to reality.

He looks at his clothes, his hands covered with dry blood. Then simply nods.

Now Julia doesn’t know what to say. She can’t very well go ahead and hug him.

“I’m so sorry.” 

She doesn’t even know if he’s lost anyone, why he is here. His face gives away nothing. No tears. No grief. Just his jaw clenched hard, and his eyes opened wide, as if finding it hard to focus. She knows this face. She makes it when her mother slaps her hard and she doesn’t want to show how much it hurts.

He says nothing in return, just barely nods again and keeps staring ahead. 

Julia remembers something Andrew had told her once: the sorrow of many is a fool’s consolation. She doesn’t know exactly what it means. But it sounds in her head like something that one would find comforting, knowing someone shares the burden of pain, knows how it feels, even when it’s different. That’s probably not what it means at all. But she knows that sitting next to this boy, feeling his pain, makes her feel less lonely, less hurt inside. Or maybe it has nothing to do with what he’s been through, or what he feels. Maybe she just needs to say it. To someone who doesn’t know her, never will.

“My arm,” she starts, and he slowly turns his head and looks at her cast. “My mother did this to me. She meant it. She always does.”

He lifts his eyes to her face. In an instant, something else takes over. Like a windshield wiper over his mind, her words push away his own sorrows. The rage floods his thoughts, makes his face feel hot, makes his fists clench.

“Is she here?” A fool. He’s a fool. And if she is? What is he going to do? Hit some woman he doesn’t know? Break  _ her _ arm?

“No.” Julia shakes her head. “But she’ll be mad again when I get home. It’s my fault. I never listen to her.”

“So she breaks your arm??? Jesus-Fucking-Christ!!!” His voice jumps.

Julia just  shrugs her  shoulders. “Yeah, well… she wants me to be a good Catholic girl.”

“What does  _ that _ have to do with…”

He stops himself before he goes there. He’s been raised a Catholic. By two people who were devout and kind. Who never raised so much as their voice on their children. He looks down at their coffins again. And something inside of him tears and snaps.

He doesn’t realise that he’s crying until he feels her arms awkwardly come around him. Weird girl. What the fuck? But he doesn’t push her away. He can’t. She’s too small, the arm across his chest is the broken one. And that just makes it worse. He lifts one hand and places it over this strange girl’s cast. He can’t stop the tears from running down his face. He can feel her kindness tearing through his pain when her head leans against his shoulder. But he can’t move. And they sit like that for a long while.

It takes him some time to calm his breathing and dry his face. He moves away, and she lets him go. Her good hand is playing with the dry leaves on the ground. He can’t tear his gaze from her cast.

“ _ Jules _ ?” he reads her name in one of the signatures, in between many hearts and smiley faces and ‘get well soon’ bits.

She nods, laughing a little. “Julia. Everyone calls me Jules.”

He shakes the dust off of his hand, then looks at the blood on it, and decides against hand shaking.

“I’m Peter.”

Julia looks into his reddish eyes, dark eyelashes clumped from tears.

“Will you be ok, Peter?” She doesn’t know why she asks that. She needs to go, and if he’s not going to be ok, there’s nothing she can really do about it.

“Sure. I will.” He sounds less confident than he means to. Because he knows that nothing will be ok from now on. 

Julia kind of knows that he knows that. With that much hurt, nothing is really ever ok. 

He tries to be cheerful.

“I would sign your cast… but… no pen.”

Her smile is as bright as the sunshine.

“You would? Hold on…” She always has a sharpie on her now, for everyone who asks to sign it. It barely has any ink left. But she fetches it nevertheless. “Go ahead.” She sits closer and holds her casted arm in front of him.

“What should I write?” He’s never actually done this before, always thought it was kind of stupid. But he wants to now. For this kind stranger who just held him without even knowing why he was sad. Who just told him about her own pain without even knowing his name.

“ Whatever you want,” she shrugs.

There  _ is _ something in his head. It’s been in his head for two days now. It’s one of his favourite quotes in the world. He and Braden had discussed it at length at one time. It’s about a man’s duty, an obligation, to stand up for others, to stand up for what’s right. He thinks about his parents being buried, about his sister, he thinks about this girl going back to her mother who will do terrible things to her for many years to come. He thinks about all the people going on about their lives and never giving a damn. About abused kids. About random acts of violence.

Then he scribbles what he wanted to write. It stands out. It goes all along her cast from her elbow to her wrist. Between all the wishes, hearts and smiley faces. It stands out because it’s different. And he wants her to know that despite not being able to do anything about what pains them both now, one day he will. He doesn’t say what he’s going to do once he finds the people who took his family away from him. He doesn’t even know if he  _ ever  _ will. Or know  _ how  _ to. Or what he would do to her mother if he ever met her. What he’s written about is not anger, because he’s angry to the point of not even feeling anymore,  It’s the only thing he can afford to feel right now, because everything else makes him want to lie on the ground, close his eyes and never get up again.

Julia reads out loud.

“ _ The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing _ _. _ ” She looks at him now and sees that he’s looking back. “Wow.” Is all she can say.

“Edmund Burke wrote it, he was an Irish philosopher. Although I think maybe he never did. At least my father said so. It was attributed to him because of his other teachings. But… anyway. I like it.”

She reads it again and again. She likes it too. She thinks about Andrew. How much he wants to help her. It’s just not that simple. Sometimes the good men are not  _ allowed  _ to do anything. And evil triumphs anyway. She’s been wanting to tell Andrew the truth about her mother for years now. She knows he would do something about it. But she knows her mother’s shit. She can live with it. She’s scared of what she might meet if she’s taken away. A home is a home.  It might not be perfect, but this is her family. The only one she knows. Blood is thicker than water. And she loves them, in spite of everything.

“It’s beautiful,” she says in the end.

“Keep it,” he actually smiles. Then gets up. “I should go.”

“Ok,” she looks up at him and waves a little. “I think I will stay a bit.”

“Sure…” He hesitates before he turns around. “Jules, you take care, ok?”

“I will,” she assures him. “You too, Peter.”

  
  
  


In the car, on their way back, Julia  can’t stop looking at Peter’s signature on her cast. She’s wondering what will happen to him now. Where he will go. He seemed very lost. Very sad. But he was kind to her. She has the quote memorized by now. And she pictures his face everytime she goes over it in her head. She can’t shake the feeling that he left to do what he said good people should do to stop evil from triumphing. 

“Is that a new one?” Andrew steals a look at her cast, as she’s running her fingers over the long line across it.

“Yeah, someone signed it. It’s a quote.” She recites it out loud, not even looking at it anymore.

“Oh I know it.” Andrew’s eyebrows furrow as he digs into his memory. “Burke, right? At least I think so. And I think the original quote is  _ ‘Evil triumphs when good men do nothing’ _ ”.

“I don’t know,” Julia shrugs, thinking. She has a feeling that Peter was the one who got it right. “You know, maybe it’s not Burke. But something people attribute to him because of his other teachings.” 

She doesn’t know shit about his other teachings. But she will find out. And it feels good, almost warm inside, when she repeats that boy’s words.

“I wouldn’t know,” Andrew smiles. “So, who wrote it for you?”

“Ah… this boy I met. At the cemetery. I think he was in the diner. Maybe came to watch.”

Something changes on Andrews face when he looks at her. “Your age? The boy?”

“Mmmmm… no. I think he was older. Fifteen maybe? He was… tall-ish.”

“Was his name John?”

“No. Peter. Why?” It’s her turn to be curious now.

“Oh ok.” He shakes his head. “It’s just the family, of the man that we came to pay our respects to, they had a foster kid, they were about to adopt him, loved him like their own. They say he ran away from the crime scene. And they’ve been looking for him.”

Julia knows now. She just met him. She wishes she knew  _ then _ . And she feels tears in her eyes, wondering where he’s gone, how he’s going to be from now on, who’ll take care of him. 

“He was nice,” she whispers, barely audible.

Andrew stops at the red light and looks at her now. She’s her usual self - leaves in her hair, dirt on her pretty face, sadness in those dark brown eyes. 

“Hey.” He wipes some mud from her cheek and shakes his head. “So, where did you meet your ‘nice’ prince, Cinderella?”

Julia laughs, pushing his hand away. He calls her that a lot. But the boy she has met was no prince. Just an orphan. Another hurt child. 

“Andrew?” She turns to him all the way now. When he looks back, she finally says it. “I know you’re trying to help me. I mean, I know you want to. But I’m ok. Really.”

“You’re not.  _ Really _ .” His smile fades away. “And I will get to the bottom of it.”

“Please… Don’t. I don’t want you too.”

“Why?”

_ Because if you do, they will take me away. And I will probably never see you again. And you’re my only friend. You live next door. And, although I never have, I know that if things get really bad I can run to you and you will save me. And I don’t know what will happen if they take me away, what people I will meet. Now, at least, I have you. _

“Because it’s not that bad,” she says aloud. “And I don’t want to go away. I love mom and dad and my sisters. Can you promise me you’ll stop?”

He swallows hard, all of him is screaming ‘no’, but in the end he nods. And says he promises.

“But I’m going in with you,” he warns. “And I’ll tell Maria I was the one who kept you busy.”

She smiles. “Sure.” It won’t help. But sure.

They are almost back in Philly. She’s been quiet, thinking the whole time.

“Where do I go to join the police?” she asks suddenly.

“What, NOW?” he coughs, taken off guard.

“When I can… when can I?”

He needs to think about it. “In most places I think at least twenty years old. But I think… if you still want it…” He knows someone who can help. Maybe. “We can probably push for eighteen.”

“Thanks.” She goes back to thinking and looking out the window. 

That’s what she’ll do. Like Andrew. She’ll be one of the good people. So that the evil can never triumph. 

 

Every time they stop at a red light, Andrew looks at her cast. He wonders about a boy who would think about a quote like that, on a day like this one. But mostly, he wonders about himself, his promise. He’s been walking a thin line for years now. 

He has an obligation to report. As a friend, as a citizen, not to mention an officer of law enforcement. He almost did. Many times. But something always stopped him: not being sure, not wanting to stain a good family name, not willing to break her family apart, and, most importantly, not being able to imagine what she’d go through, being sent away from her parents, her siblings. 

And there was another reason,  a selfish one . He’d met this little girl half a year after losing everything he ever loved. He’d almost drunk himself into a stupor and was almost forced out of police. Two things keep him alive today: the love he has for his job, which made him clean up and stay sober to this day, and the love he has for this girl, who’d thrown her arms around him and tore her way through his anguish when he sat on his front porch seven years ago. He convinces himself that he  will be able to keep an eye on her, stay close, make sure she’s safe. The truth is, he  can’t risk losing her, can’t lose another child. 

_ Evil triumphs when good men do nothing _ .

He’s done nothing. For years. He suspected, he’s told himself he doesn’t have enough evidence. But in the end, he knows… he  _ knows _ … this child is being beaten, every day, probably. And he’s done nothing.

Right before they get out of the car, he takes her broken arm and reads the words again. He puts a hand on Julia’s shoulder and leads her to the door.

Maria Diaz is a short woman. She has a pleasant face and a bright, wide smile. She is always dressed meticulously, even when she’s at home. Appearances matter. If her hair is turning grey, he could never tell. It’s always a shiny black, pulled back tight, not a single strand left  astray . She opens the door and gives him a happy welcoming gasp, then looks at Julia. She’s still smiling when she does, but her eyes grow darker, the smile is just on her lips now.

“Officer Stevenson, what a lovely surprise. Come on in, please.” She opens the door wide enough for both of them to enter and closes it in a hasty manner. “We’ve been so worried. Where did you find our dearest Julia? She’s not in trouble, God forbid, is she?”

Andrew clears his throat, his arms around Julia’s shoulders, pulls her closer to his side.

“Oh no, ma’am. Nothing like that. It’s my fault, really, I should have called. This morning I was loading some boxes into my car, Oliver’s old toys to take to the children’s shelter. And Julia here was an angel and kindly offered to help. I know I should have asked your permission, but it’s just around the corner. And I never imagined it would take us half a day. But you know… poor children. Julia saw them taking the toys and the books and she insisted we stay and read to them for a while. I hope I didn’t cause you too much trouble. Please, kindly forgive my carelessness.”

Julia lifts her eyes to Andrew’s face. Wow, the man can lie. And he sounds so convincing, so truthful. Even his tone. For a moment there she’s confused and wonders if that’s actually what happened.

“Oh, of course.” Her mother’s face is an image of compassion and concern now. “Poor babies. Poor Oliver, God rest his beautiful soul. You’re such a wonderful man, Mr. Stevenson. I’m always telling the kids what a wonderful neighbor we’re lucky to have, and a police officer, too. Isn’t that right, Julia, dear? Haven’t I always said that?”

“Yes, mama, you have,” Julia nods, holding her breath. She knows. Andrew will leave. And her mother’s tone will change. Her words will hurt. Then her hands.

“Oh, you dear angel, reading to those poor souls.” Maria leans in and kisses her daughter's forehead. “Go on now, wash up, dinner will be ready soon.”

Andrew puts his hand on Julia’s head as she looks up at him. The fear in her eyes, the helplessness on her face, make his throat shut  constrict with tears. He gives her the most encouraging smile he can manage. And a slight nod. He watches her climb the stairs. She’s still looking at her cast, tracing her finger over the words, unaware that the boy who’d written them has changed her life. Because her mother will never lay a hand on her again.

“Would you like some lemonade, officer?” Maria makes sure the door to her daughter's room is closed, before turning her attention back to their guest. 

“Oh yes, I would, if it’s not too much trouble. Thank you, ma’am. It’s been a hot day.”

He follows her to the kitchen. There’s no one inside. When she opens the fridge to fetch the lemonade, he closes the door behind him and steps closer.

“I know,” he says.

She turns around. His voice is closer than she expected, and it makes Maria flinch.

“Oh my goodness, you’ve scared me a little.”

“Good.” He’s not smiling anymore as he steps even closer. “Because I need you to be scared. And I’ll tell you why. I know what you’re doing to that child. And you will stop.”

“Dear Lord, Mr Stevenson, whatever do you mean? If Julia’s been saying things…”

“Julia’s been saying nothing. Not a damn thing,” he interrupts her, his voice is a roaring whisper. “She’s been taking your shit, for years. Making up stories about  falling down stairs , getting into fights at school, being scratched by tree branches… You’ve been beating the crap out of that little child and she’s been protecting you, protecting your family, afraid of losing you, of being taken away, of her sisters being taken to foster care. But you see, I’m not afraid. And I want to be very clear about that one, because it’s the most important part that I want you to understand.” Andrew takes the pitcher out of her shaking hands, places it on the counter and leans even closer, his face is almost touching hers now. “ _ I am not afraid… of ANYTHING _ . What I’ll do to you, to your precious reputation, to your precious family, to you personally… you  _ never _ want to find out. Do you understand? It’s important that you do. I’ll stop at nothing. And I mean  _ nothing _ . I’ll destroy you, everything you ever wanted, everything you ever cared about. I will turn the wonderful image of your righteous existence into nine circles of hell. And I will use  _ everything _ at my disposal to do so. I’ll call in every favor I’m owed, I’ll lie under oath, I’ll fabricate the evidence if I have to. And I won’t rest until I see you buried under the ashes of your hypocrisy.” He takes a deep breath, piercing her with his eyes, shaking with rage. “I will end you. I swear to God I will. You put one hand on that child again and I will burn you alive. She’ll hate me for it. But I’ll do it. I see one scratch on that girl, one bruise on her face… you better fucking pray real hard in your church that she doesn’t so much as slip and fall on her way from school… because so help me God…”

He stands over her now, staring her down, looking into her eyes, seeing the terror in them. He doesn’t move until she nods.

“Say it.”

Her voice is trembling. “I understand…” is all she can manage.

Andrew turns around and walks  out the back door.

He’s broken his promise. He’s threatened to break his oath. When he’s back in his own living room, he collapses on the sofa and stays still for a long time. He’s thinking about the shootout in Baltimore. About families who were wiped out, erased from existence. He’s thinking about Oliver, his mother. He’s thinking about a teenage boy whom he hasn’t even met, but who, without even knowing him, has given him the strength to find his voice, to face his demons, to stand up for what mattered most. A boy who, surrounded by people grieving for victims of a random act of violence, changed the life of one little girl with a random act of kindness.

His father, who was killed in the line of duty when Andrew was just fifteen years old, told him once that being a police officer doesn’t mean you can save the world. But you can make it better. One person at a time.

 

  
  


**2004**

Long before Johnny is done telling her his life story, how it started, what it meant and how it ended, Julia knows. There's no part in his tale about meeting a little girl with a cast on her arm, but she's figured it out long before he's gotten to the diner shooting. 

“Have you ever been back there?” she asks, when he tells her how he ran away from the police.

He kept running, for hours, until he couldn’t anymore.

He came to the cemetery on the day they were buried. He waited for it to get dark, hiding out of sight. Then he came out and lay on Adele’s grave. He cried until he blacked out. He stayed there until someone noticed him the following evening. He was barely conscious and was taken to a hospital. Then put back in the system. Ran away several times. Was caught and put back again and again. 

“No. Not since that day.”

Julia frees herself from between his arms, climbs off his lap and stands up.

“C’mon,” she says, holding her hand out for him to take.

“Jules, it’s like two in the morning…” He tries to protest, but he’s already on his feet.

“It’s  actually four in the morning. And we’re going.”

He sighs, smiling. He gave up arguing with her when she gets like this a  while ago. Reluctantly he gets dressed. So does she. Then she goes through one of the unpacked boxes with her  belongings (this place just isn’t big enough to fit everything they own) and slips something into her bag. Johnny is intrigued, but he knows better than to ask her about it.

He’s driving. The roads are  empty , and it only takes them a little over an hour and a half to get there. Julia picks up some flowers at the gas station.

When they  arrive , they clean up a little, arrange the flowers around the graves, and then hold each other.

“I wish I’d known them,” Julia whispers, standing on tiptoe and placing a soft kiss on Johnny’s jawline. 

He draws her closer, and she can feel his breathing mixed with silent sobs. “They would have loved you so much,” he whispers back.

“I know…” Her lips curve into a playful smile next to his neck. “I’m pretty cute.”

He’s laughing now, kissing her again and again. “Damn right you are.”

She takes his elbow and turns them both around. Then points to a tall hill covered with trees.

“If I die first, I want to be buried there.”

It’s beautiful, he gives her that, but he doubts it’s possible. 

“Jules, I don’t think they have a place there to…”

She presses the tips of her fingers to his mouth. “It’s where I held you for the very first time…”

He freezes. The memory comes back in a flash. He looks into Julia’s eyes and sees the little girl with a cast on her arm and two long black braids.  _ Fuck me _ . Julia. Jules. The words on her cast, the smiley faces, the little hearts. Her head pressed against his shoulder when she hugged him. Her kindness. Her words. Her pain. His girl. His Julia. And that battered little girl. It’s his Julia. She’s the one who was being beaten by her mother, she’s the one he had left to go back to that life.

It’s too much. He tears himself from her and takes a step to the side, then turns away, throws his head back. Slowly, she follows him and laces her arms around his waist, pressing her face in between his shoulder blades. He covers her hands with his.

“I’ve never believed in that shit, you know?” She smiles. “Still don’t. I mean, I don’t believe in fate or God or any of that. But this is fucking incredible.”

He nods, squeezing her hands. “No shit.”

She places a kiss on his back. “I wish I knew then. What happened to you. Why you were here. I would never have let you leave. I would have told Stevenson. We would have figured something out together.”

Johnny turns around, his eyes are moist. He takes her face into his hands. “That image… of you… your words... what you said… it haunted me. For years. The way I left you. To go back to your mother, to that house… I just walked away, consumed by my own grief. Jesus, Jules…” He leans his forehead against hers. “I just left you.”

She smiles, running her fingers through his hair. “But you didn’t.” She snuggles into his arms. “I was here with Stevenson. He knew your father, apparently. After he drove me home, my mother never laid a hand on me again. Not once. I always suspected he’d said something to her that day, but he always denied it. Until about two years ago. He said… what you wrote on my cast made him realise he didn’t care what I wanted or asked of him.”

She opens her purse and takes out a long yellowish piece of hardened plaster, covered with a protective transparent polish layer. He can see his own handwriting, staring back at him from thirteen years ago.

“Christ, you’ve saved it…” he murmurs into her hair.

Julia nods, giving him a smirky smile. “You said ‘keep it’. I did.” She pulls him close again. “Whatever he said to her on that day, she never came near me again. I know today, being older, being a police officer, having seen the shit I’ve seen, that he probably saved my life. You both have.”

Just thinking about it makes him shiver violently, gasp for air. Julia strokes his shoulders, holds him tighter.

“And… you did more than that. Because what you wrote made me want to join the police. And if I hadn’t… you and I...”

“Don’t even say it…” He presses his lips to her mouth with everything he has. Then, in between desperate kisses, whispers again and again, “... don’t even say it…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To my dear friends, Nikita, Gnomecat, Violiko,
> 
> Thank you for always being there. Nikita, thank you for talking this through with me, for keeping me in check, for working your magic to make it readable.
> 
> Love you all.


	9. Gravity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > **_"To practice five things under all circumstances constitutes perfect virtue; these five are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness."_ **
>> 
>> Confucius

**2014**

_I’ll be back in a few days, and we’ll talk then, alright?_

Right.

The phone drops on the sofa cushion and bounces off of it three times. One, two… the third one is almost negligible - either the upholstery fabric is not very elastic or the foam inside is the wrong density. Those two factors, and the weight of the object, are the variables affecting the number of times said object will bounce on the surface before becoming stationary. Now, what’s interesting about the fact that he’s thinking about _this…_  is _fucking nothing_.

Trying to kid yourself into thinking you’re finally about to take the most important step in your life will do that to you, alright.

The small TV across the room has a fairly matte surface, not nearly reflective enough to create his mirror image. Not a bad thing. The last two times he felt _this_ pathetic and angry with himself and happened to see his own face staring back at him, it didn’t end well for the reflective surface.

_It’s not on you, Carrie._

Without moving his head, his eyes follow a free trajectory across the living room: oil painting, fruit on the table, chairs, coffee table, his knee, his arm thrown over his knee, his hand helplessly hanging off the end of his arm, fingers starting to fall into an erratically restless movement pattern, his other knee… the phone. It stopped bouncing.

Bouncing.

Maybe there _was_ something interesting about the factors that make an object bounce or stop bouncing after all. He actually turns his head this time, because what he wants to look at does not lie on the path of his free trajectory. It’s behind him. By the door. Ok, it’s two things. One - a pile of letters to his comrades’ beneficiaries, two - his black backpack, half open, and next to it some basic toiletry items… toothpaste, toothbrush, dental floss… some other crap he usually packs… right before he shits, showers, shaves and… well, goes.

Because bouncing is what his shit is _really_ about. _Carrie: C’mon, you know my shit. Asshole: You know mine. Carrie: But you don’t have my condition. Asshole: True. And you don’t really know half my shit._

Now, _that_ would be a fair conversation. Honest. Truthful. Because the truth is, he bounces. Takes off. Time after time. And it has nothing to do with Carrie saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Or with the dead kid in Caracas. Or with any of the things among the endless line of excuses that he’s made over the years. In the end, he always bounces. Probably for the same reason the phone eventually stops bouncing on the sofa. Gravity.

_It’s not on you, Carrie._

And gravity, like they say, is a bitch. For the phone, it’s Earth’s gravity. Sooner or later, it loses momentum and can’t escape the pull. For Peter Quinn, the last twelve years have become a constant search for alternative sources of gravity strong enough to pull him away from the ultimate one - the job, the mission, what he does, the only thing he does, the only thing that’s ever made him feel good about himself. Maybe not the _only_ thing, but he surely had fucked-up the only _other_ thing.

He picks up the phone and throws it against the wall. It hits hard, right next to the oil painting, and breaks into three separate objects before landing on the floor. No bouncing this time. As an added bonus, no making phone calls either.

The force.. His hand, picking up the phone and throwing it against the wall, is the force. He was always somewhat good at physics. Two things can move a stationary object in a direction opposed to the pull of gravity: a stronger source of gravity, and an applied force with a vector going in a direction of… _Jesus-Fucking-Christ, what’s wrong with you???_

Quinn gets up, walks around the sofa, and in three determined strides reaches his backpack. He throws things in one by one. Then stops, turns around. His back against the stand by the door, his palms resting on the edge of it.

 _It’s not on you, Carrie_ . _Never has been. Never should have been. You don’t know my shit. Half the time, I don’t even know my shit. It’s some fucked-up shit, I can tell you that much. And you’re about to find out just how bad it is._

The truth is, there’s no stronger source of gravity on Earth than the one of Earth. And there’s no stronger source of gravity in his life than the one of the only thing he was ever really good at. But the most honest, most raw truth is… escaping gravity should never be about an alternative source of it. It should be about force. For thousands of years, humans were using their creativity and inventiveness to come up with new ways to generate motion against the force compelling an object to remain stationary. For twelve years, he’s been trying to find something that would pull him away without him needing to generate enough force to do it himself. He’s been using others, people and circumstances, to create a sufficient counter force. In the end, though, it’s not enough, never has been, never will be. The only thing it does, or ever did, is leave behind bits and pieces of broken hearts, broken dreams, broken expectations… and most of them his own. And if they were _just_ his own, it would really be ok.

 _It’s not on you, Carrie. I had no right. Coming to you after everything that’s happened in Islamabad, when you had just lost your father, had just committed to being a mother to your daughter, had just met your own mother after_ _years_ _of_ _not_ _hearing from her, had just found out I’d made it out of Pakistan alive…_

The truth is… he never quit. All those times he tried, in the end, he never did. There was always something. But really, all those ‘somethings’ were the same excuses that were always there, that he knew would be there ahead of time.

Twenty percent is harsh odds for a mission. He knows that. He’s been in the position of having to calculate those odds many times. When a mission commander tells you, based on being briefed on the objective, the situation, the people at his disposal, their seniority, experience, their skills, the mark, the conditions on the ground, that you have twenty percent less chance of completing the mission, twenty percent less chance of getting all your men out alive, you believe him. Because this is a real number, based on real factors.

He walks over to the sofa again, slowly lowers himself onto it, leans forward, rests his elbows on his knees and locks his hands. His head is down. Because probability is even harder to argue with than physics.

He remembers a joke one of his professors once told, explaining the treacherous nature of statistics and probability.

_“So, they ask a man ‘What are the chances of you walking out of this building and meeting a tyrannosaurus?’ The man looks confused for a while, stumped, thinks it’s a joke, but in the end says, ‘I dunno… one in a trillion? Much lower actually?’ Now they ask a woman the same question. Without having to think about it, the woman answers, ‘Easy. One in two. Fifty percent. I’ll either meet it, or I won’t.’”_

And the thing is, it’s not really a joke. Because that truly is the essence of calculating the odds in real life. If you know that dinosaurs have been extinct for over sixty million years, it’s a factor, you can’t ignore it. It reduces the chances of meeting one on the street tremendously. But the woman is ultimately correct. If you take out the factors or don’t know them, it all comes down to fifty-fifty.

What’s the probability of the mission succeeding without him, of every man getting out alive? Twenty percent less than optimal. What’s the probability of him making it in real world? One in two. Because he has no fucking idea, does he? He either will or he won’t. What’s the probability that he and Carrie will make it work? Same shit. One in two. What’s the probability of Carrie saying ‘yes’ when she’s done sorting out her life? One in two.

Why?

Because there are no factors to base the calculations on. What clue did she ever give him that she was interested in him in the first place? What made him think she was willing to (or planning to) get out? What would he do once he gets out? What _can_ he do? The only market where his skills are considered remotely ‘marketable’ is the one that he wants to stay away from. What can he give her? Give Franny? In all his fantasies, did he _once_ imagine beyond the point where they tear off each other’s clothes and wake up the next morning deliriously happy? Because after that, there is life. Even with Carrie. Maybe _especially_ with Carrie. There’s a new life that he had promised her, basically proposed, with nothing to base it on, with no plan, no feasible idea of what to do the following morning other than the morning-after sex.

And why?

Because he fucking _needs_ it. He _needs_ the pull. A pull strong enough to tear him away from the event horizon around the black hole of his life, his job. _He_ needs it. _He_ . No matter the fact that he’s laid the load of his needs on Carrie’s shoulders when it was the last thing _she_ needed. Fucking talk about the worst timing in the history of bad timings.

_Yo, Carrie, I know some shit’s going on in your life, with your dad being dead and all, with your daughter needing a mother, and you finally doing the right thing and becoming one, with everything you went through on our last job… but hey, you know what? I need out. I can’t do it on my own, I’ve learnt that. I don’t want anything like Islamabad in my life ever again. And you know what, I’ve never been strong enough to pull myself out of my own shit. Care to give me a hand? Oh, and you know… we could do it together, ‘cause you want out too, right? You’ve never said anything about wanting out (if anything, all the evidence is to the contrary), but let’s assume you do. Let’s get out together. See, I have feelings for you…_

He unlocks his hands and drops his head into his palms. This is getting worse by the minute.

Maybe Carrie does want to get out. After all, she’s committed to taking care of Franny now, she’s seen the worst.

After all, isn’t that why he’s still here? Why he keeps coming to her, time after time? Because at some point, about two years ago, in a place where he least expected it, she took his breath away. Everything about her was like a breath of fresh air in a world that had become a prison he was rotting in. And he stuck around. Because he never wanted her to end up the way he did. Because in this world you reach a point of no return, beyond which there’s only bouncing farther away.

And maybe it was his delusional thinking, but he actually does want her out. He wants that for her. He wants to be there when she does, he wants to be the one who gets her there. But the big question in the end, is not _‘But does SHE?’_ , but rather _‘CAN_ _he?’_.

He looks at the pieces of his phone on the floor.

When he called her, just minutes ago, was he waiting, hoping for her to say ‘yes’ or was he dreading it? If she did say ‘yes’, was his next line going to be _‘I can’t wait for you to get back so I can hold you in my arms. I can’t wait to start a life with you’_ or was it going to be _‘Wow, I don’t know that to say. When are you going to be back? There’s this mission… I’ve been called away. I tried to say no. But they really need me. It’ll be the last one, I promise. Then I’m out. It might take a while, but I’ll be back. I mean it. I’ve meant everything I said.’_

Because the truth is, he did. He meant everything he said. While another truth is, he’s going to Syria. And it’s not because of Carrie not giving him an answer, not because what she’s left him with sounds more like a ‘no’ than a ‘yes’. It’s just about him. What he does. Over and over.

And the worst of it is... if they were to get together, who’s to say that a year from now, two years from now, he won’t bounce again. Or worse. Because this is his duty, his life, his gravity. What if he and Carrie have a fight and the phone rings? Will he stay? What if they need him? If they give him the odds? Will he dangle at the end of his rope, try to lay it on Carrie, will he ask her to throw him a line again? For how long? To what end?

He doesn’t need an answer to that one. He’s known it for as long as he’s known himself, been honest with himself about what he is and what his life has become.

_It’s not on you, Carrie. It’s on me._

Was there ever a moment after Rob left that he didn’t _know_ he was going? Desperation and vague hopes aside, was there ever a doubt? The whole time he was talking to Carrie there was only one thing, one phrase in his head, _‘Carrie, I’m at the end of my rope. Say something. Do something. Make me stay. Change my mind. I need you. I need your help. I can’t do this on my own, I really can’t. I never could.’_

He chuckles at his own thoughts. The last moment of truth. You don’t get out because somebody helps you, because somebody throws you a line. You get out because you can, because you’re the ruling force in your life. Because you push yourself out, not because you wait for somebody to pull you out. And you _definitely_ don’t presume you are capable of _helping_ somebody get out, when you can’t even carry your own weight.

And it’s the same conclusion he’s reached over and over every time he’s tried this on. In the end, he knows, the phone will ring, or someone will come, and he will go. Sooner or later, he will go.

He looks at the pile of letters on the stand by the door. Time to add one.

He can’t even call, can’t tell her he’s going. And not because the fucking phone is broken. Because Carrie is right, she needs time, she has things to sort through that don’t involve him and _his_ needs right now. She’s been through enough. She’s asked him not to pressure her. And if he calls, tells her he’s going away, how would it sound? What would she make of it? He knows exactly what. She would fly back, try to stop him. She’d feel pressured to drop all the things that matter to her right now because she’d think he decided to leave when she didn’t give him an answer. No, he’s done enough. He’s not laying _this_ on her as well.

And he knows that leaving like he’s about to means there’s no coming back. It’ll hurt. Both of them. It’s a ‘cut-and-run’; he’s good at it, even though this time he doesn’t mean for it to be that. But he made that call. And she told him not to pressure her. And he won’t. He’ll live with the repercussions. He always has.

In the end, by the time he has a pen and a paper ready, he knows what he wants to say. In essence, he’s been saying this to her in his head over and over. _It’s not on you, Carrie. It’s on me._

Everything he knows, everything he feels is right there, clear as day.

He’ll always be pulled back.

He never wanted that life for her. He wanted to be her anchor, the light to guide her to what she’s seeking, whatever it is. To show her the path and help her stay out of harm’s way.

He’s had many hopes at times throughout his life. This one wasn’t the biggest, but it felt like the strongest pull. Because for almost eight years, he had none. But he can see now that nothing will be enough to pull him out completely.

He loves her. With everything he is. That’s above all other truths.

He’s hers. In many ways. He wanted to be. He wanted to be for her what he never found for himself. Not here, not in their world. But in the end, he couldn’t even be that for himself.

There’s always been something pulling him back…

  


 

 

 

**2007**

Stevenson’s face is red and his eyes become darker by the second.

“What did he look like?” he asks, pulling a notepad from under a pile of papers on his desk.

“ _What did he look like?_ ” Julia leans forward as far as her nearly eight months pregnant belly allows. “You don’t get it, do you? It doesn’t matter what he looked like. Or what I know about him, which is _nothing_. Or what his name is. What are you gonna do? Go threaten him? Beat the crap out of him? Do you even know what kind of deep shit that world is?”

“He came to your home, at _night,_ and he _threatened_ you. That’s all I need to know.”

“He didn’t _threaten_ me! He told me the truth. The fucked-up, god’s honest truth. That Johnny will _never_ get out. They won’t let him. That we’ve been fooling ourselves into thinking we can make it work. That both our lives will be worth shit if he does. That’s not a threat, it’s the _truth_.”

Stevenson stands up abruptly and takes a step back. He half-turns towards the window behind his chair, considering what she’s just said.

“And you think J doesn’t know that?” he says finally, facing her again. “How dumb do you think he is? He doesn’t know what his own people can do to him? To you? Fuck, you think he would _ever_ put you or the baby in that kind of risk if he even _suspected_ they would?”

“I don’t _know_ ,” she raises her voice. “ _Nobody_ knows. And Johnny is out there, on a mission again, and I can’t very well ask him, can I? The only thing I _do_ know is that what that man said, it makes _sense_ . More so than _anything_ we’ve been kidding ourselves about.”

“Oh, fuck… _kidding yourselves_ ? You two are the strongest people I’ve _ever_ met. You’ve held it together for over four years. And now, when it’s finally almost over, he’s on his last mission, one motherfucker comes to fuck with your head and you’re actually considering it? Considering letting him go? Where? Back to that life where there’s nothing for him but war? That’s all it comes down to? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m saying we might not have a _choice_ . Maybe we _thought_ we did, but we really didn’t. Maybe Johnny knew parts of it, maybe he thought we could go away… and I _would_ , in a heartbeat. But that man is right. What if we end up on the run for life? What if we’re never safe? What if that shit catches up with us? With _any_ of us?”

“Seriously, Jules… Now you’re just being paranoid. I’m sure the Agency has more important things to deal with than tracking an ex-operative. I am _hoping_ so… you know.” He winks.

She doesn’t smile. “I don’t know. Who said it would be the agency? I have no idea what he does, really. And that’s something that _motherfucker_ has made _very_ clear. From the sound of it, it’s some bad shit. And by _bad_ I mean _the worst_ . I sleep next to a killer. I know that. _You_ know that. But neither of us really knows what he does, how deep it goes, how far people would go for it to remain protected. I watch the news sometimes, I hear about a successful assassination, and I can’t help wondering… did the man I’m with, the father of my child, do that?”

“What are you saying? That you’re afraid of J?” Stevenson’s lips quiver and he looks genuinely puzzled.

“I’m not _afraid_ of him. You’re not listening. I’m saying that man had a point when he said I have no idea how deep the rabbit hole goes. And I don’t know how much of what he warned me might happen is exaggerated and how much of it is an actual possibility. But can I really afford to take that chance? Can either of us?”

“And you’re just going to throw it all away? Four years… the happiest four years of your life… both your lives… because there’s a _chance_ that he was telling you the truth? I _am_ listening, Jules. But I’ve _seen_ you, _both_ of you. How can you even consider letting him go? Why?”

“Because I _love_ him!!!” She screams at the top of her lungs, her voice breaking into a soul-wrenching sob. “I love him more than I want to have a life with him! _That’s_ why. That man said that he can protect all of us, but only if he stays. If Johnny leaves, we’re on our own. I believe him. And I’m not sure _that’s_ a chance I’m willing to take.I don’t want Johnny dead because he tried to get out for us. I don’t want him to live through something happening to me or his child, with the thought that he’s the one who brought it on.”

Stevenson walks around his desk and sits next to her. He looks surrendered, beaten, defeated.

“So, you decided… is that what you’re saying? It’s over? What about J? Doesn’t he get to have a say in that?”

She shakes her head, wiping the tears with the inner side of her wrist.

“Of course he does. I haven’t decided _anything_ . And if he says we can make it, I’ll believe him. I’ll take his word over anyone’s. I trust him, with my life, with our son’s life, with his life… and with my heart. I’m just…” Julia exhales. “I’m just… getting myself ready for the inevitable, I guess. Because if it comes to that… for all the reasons you’ve just said, it won’t be easy. And he’ll need me to be there, _with_ him, he’ll need to see that I understand it, that I am able to let him go. Because he won’t leave if I don't let him. And I need to be able to let him.”

 

The next few days go by in a blur. Work is overwhelming, the air conditioning in their home goes out, Johnny still isn’t back, and carrying around an extra 30 pound and counting everyday isn’t making things any easier. Julia manages to push the man’s threats and the talk with Stevenson to the back of her mind for a while. There’s nothing to be done about it now. Better to focus on the present until a decision can be made.

  


A week later, she’s almost home, walking through the back alley of the neighboring city block, when it happens.

She’s on her way home after a long day at work. Their home is within walking distance from the precinct. It’s been dark for a while now, and the air is crisp, a little chilly. She’s been having hot flashes through her third trimester. The cool air is refreshing.

The first blow hits her square in the face. It’s so hard, so sudden, that for a moment she’s airborne and flies across the alley, hitting a brick wall. Sharp pain slashes through her body, sending shock waves from her head to her belly. She doesn’t even have time to scream. Disoriented and unable to move, she feels herself sliding down against the wall, slumping to the ground. She sees legs in high boots stepping closer.

The second blow lands on the side of her chest and knocks the air out of her like a silent scream. Covering her belly with both arms, she rolls to the side, the only thought in her mind to protect their child. Despite knowing that she’s opening her face to the attacker, she forces herself to look up. Her vision is a little blurry, but she can see his face clearly. Evidence. If she survives this, she needs to be able to identify the man. She takes in as much detail as she possibly can: his clothes, approximate height, complexion, eye color, hair color, the shape of his nose, his mouth.

That’s when she sees the pipe in his hand.

He swings it high, right above her head, and she knows this is it. If they find her body soon enough, if she survives long enough, maybe little Johnny has a chance of being taken out of her alive. So, she doesn’t cover her head, just tucks it in, forming an even tighter ball, still holding their unborn son with both her arms.

She will never meet him, she knows. Never watch him grow up, never find out if her prayers were answered and he inherited his father’s beautiful eyes, his smile. She will never see his father again, never hold him. Her last thought is about him, what losing her or both of them will do to him, how he will survive this.

Then it all goes dark.

  


 

 

 

**2016**

Carrie stands by the door. She’d rather be anywhere right now than here. She’d rather be uncovering a terrorist plot to bring down the entire western civilization. And yet, here she is. Because there’s a part of her that wants to, needs to. There’s one part that’s screaming that what she _should_ be doing is going home, back to Franny, back to starting to figure out what she wants to do with the mess of her life, her _own_ life, her own little dysfunctional family. But it’s that other part, the part she could never let go, the one that slashed open again when she saw Quinn’s name on the caller ID.

He’d called her early, seven thirty in the morning. She’d expected him to be angry. He wasn’t. He sounded tired, but his voice was soft. He’d asked if she was okay. She wasn’t. Far from it. She was barely conscious, after a sleepless night of drinking and crying. She was angry: at him, at Astrid, but mostly at herself. And she was lost. Alone. Wondering if this is how she’ll always be now, having pushed away the only person who’d always made her feel protected, tethered, grounded, who’d always had her back, even when he was half a globe away.

He’d asked where she was, if she needed Max to come and pick her up, to make sure she got safely to her hotel. He hadn’t said one word about how she’d acted the night before, about the things she’d thrown at him. He told her that Julia’s surgery went fine, that she was recovering nicely. And he thanked her… _fucking thanked her_ … for telling him where Johnny was and that he needed him. It made her tear up again, remembering _how_ she told him about his son, what words she used, how cruel she was. And why.

He’d told her about the night he’d spent in Julia’s room, holding his son for the first time, having him sleep in his arms. There was something in his voice that she’d never heard before - joy. And yet, for some reason, everything inside her was twisting into a tight painful knot. And all she could think about was… he’s talking, just talking, about himself, about how happy he is. She kept trying to remember if they’d ever talked like this before, and why they hadn’t, and why they were now? She kept trying to figure out what had just changed, why they changed. Or maybe nothing had changed at all.

She kept trying to picture Quinn, _her Quinn_ , holding his boy for the very first time. She wished she’d been there. To see that side of him, to watch him finally get that lost part of his life back. He wasn’t the one who told her about having a son. But she knew that one pain, that one regret, was always there, following him everywhere he went. And now, somehow, it had become _her_ pain, _her_ regret- for never asking, never taking the time, never showing that she cared enough to listen. Because she did, she fucking cared. So why didn’t she ever bother to ask?

She’d said she’d see him later in the afternoon, when she comes by to switch Max. There’d been a long pause, and then his voice got concerned again. He asked her if she was sure she was okay. She lied and said that yes, she was. Then he did something that he had never done to her before - he laughed, and called her a ‘liar’. She found herself laughing too, telling him what she’d always wanted to when he’d see right through her: “Fuck you, Quinn.” But when she did, her voice was soft, relieved, tender.

He’d said that they should maybe… probably… talk some day. And she said, “Sure.” When she hung up she cried again, then laughed through tears. After everything she’d said to him the night before, all the hurtful words, he’d seen through her, forgiven her, same as always. She realized then she would never be alone as long as he lived. Would never be lost. He would never leave her.

She’d put her phone away and ordered three strong short espressos. Emptied them one after another, called a cab, and went back to the hospital.

  


She’s awakened from her reverie when the nurse she’d spoken with earlier passes by.

“That’s the one, honey,” pointing to the door.

Carrie knocks and, before even getting a response, she opens the door a crack and peeks inside.

Julia is sitting in the chair by the window, hooked to an IV, her legs tucked underneath her, a book in her hands. The moment the door opens and she sees Carrie, she breaks into the most joyful of smiles, jumping up and leaping towards her, forgetting about the IV. She stops and curses, looking back at Carrie, waving her in impatiently.

In a flash, the turmoil of doubt in Carrie’s head dissipates. Because in that moment, she knows why she came here. That there’s in fact _no_ other place she’d rather be right now, no other person she’d rather be _with_. There’s a reason Julia is in the ‘Quinn’ compartment in her head, she realizes. And it goes beyond their past history, beyond their son. Julia has that Quinn-feeling about her. Carrie feels it in how she is with her. When she talks to Julia, it reminds her how it used to be with Quinn sometimes. She feels herself exposed and almost transparent. She hates it. But then she loves it. Misses it. Craves it.

Closing the door behind her, she crosses the room and steps into Julia’s embrace.

Carrie has known Quinn for a while now, over four years. She’s known Julia for barely four weeks. But they are both like gravity to her, a pull she cannot withstand. She can kick and scream and try to break free, but in the end, just like when she’s walked into this room, she’s drawn in, dreading the powerlessness, but inevitably defeated by the need to be accepted and loved just the way she is.

Julia is much smaller. Her frame, her arms, are almost too fragile. Being held by her, Carrie has the strange sense of feeling protected and protective at the same time. Julia keeps holding her, not wanting to move away, and Carrie is unable to let go for a long time. After a while, she finds herself tucking her face into Julia’s shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, and her eyes well up again.

The  moment those words are out, Carrie is angry with herself. She hasn’t even asked Julia how she’s feeling. All she can think about, _again_ , is her own guilt.

“Sorry?” Julia pulls away, giving her a quizzical stare.

“Nevermind,” Carrie retreats, quickly inspecting her. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine.” Julia’s not one for letting things slide. “What are you sorry about?”

Carrie heaves a frustrated sigh. “This,” she says finally, motioning around the hospital room, at Julia’s PCA pump, at her. “I _never_ should have let it come to this. I should have dragged you to the emergency room, not stolen you some antibiotics. I shouldn’t have listened to you.”

Julia doesn’t reply at first. Her mouth opens and closes again. Her eyes narrow and she arches a sly brow. Under her stare, Carrie feels a familiar jab of lapsing into full defense mode, ready to be confronted, blamed; prepared to lash out if it comes to that. She’s caught by surprise, when Julia just starts laughing and flings her arms around her again.

“Oh gosh, you really _are_ as silly as they say.” She doesn’t let go until Carrie relaxes, becomes less stiff, lifts a tentative hand to place on her shoulder. She’s still wondering what to make of the ‘silly’ remark, when Julia clarifies. “Ever blame yourself for being born too late to stop the Kennedy assassination?”

Carrie can’t stop what happens next any more than she can stop herself from waking up in the morning. It’s like a storm: within seconds she’s taken completely in, bits and pieces of information swirling in her mind, clicking into place, question marks added, connecting lines formed. It’s not until Julia pulls away again, her expression screaming both admiration and amusement, that she realises what she’s doing.

“Oh my fucking God, you just stopped it, didn’t you? In your head? You just stopped the assassination!”

Huffing with irritation, Carrie moves away, her eyes darting to Julia’s face. She can’t help the half smile curling in one corner of her mouth.

“Maybe...” she grumbles in the end.

Julia gives her an unrelenting stare. “You look like shit, Carrie. Have you slept at all?”

Carrie _feels_ like shit, too. And no, she hasn’t. “Long night.”

Julia sits back in her chair and points to another one, in the far corner of her room. Instead, Carrie lowers herself to the edge of her hospital bed.

Julia tucks her legs underneath her again. “Wanna talk about it?”

Actually, Carrie does. Which is weird, annoying, and totally unfamiliar territory for her.

“Quinn called me this morning,” she finds herself blurting out, hating herself the moment she says it.

“Ah.”

That’s it? _Ah_? Carrie’s eyes narrow to crinkled slits. “You put him up to it.”

“Bullshit. I _never_ told him to _call_ you.” Julia winks.

Carrie sighs, shakes her head.

“God, I’m bad at this shit...”

Julia’s head tilts sideways. “You mean like visiting a sick friend or…?”

Carrie exhales impatiently. “You _know_ what I mean.”

“Maybe. But it’s too much fun pulling it out of your embarrassed and irritated ass.”

The momentary discontent in Carrie’s eyes is swiftly replaced with something resembling actual delight. She's actually looking forward to this, talking. Feeling compelled to, and at ease enough to. Feeling heard.

“Hey, do you smoke?” Julia asks suddenly.

Carrie’s face changes again, a stir of surprise and curiosity.

“Do _you_?”

“Not _officially_ . But I’ve been _craving_ a smoke since this morning. You wanna get outta here?”

Carrie eyes her IV line, then the PCA pump. “You sure?”

“Fuck _yeah_.”

Julia fidgets impatiently in her chair, reaching for her IV with the clear intention of removing it and setting herself free. Something akin to camaraderie comes over Carrie. She rolls her eyes and sighs, fetching some hep-locks from one of the plastic containers on the wall. She unhooks the IV properly, the ways she’s seen the nurses do for Quinn countless times, and turns the PCA pump off.

“I don’t have cigarettes on me, though,” she informs Julia. Then, with a wicked smile, remembers something: “But I bet _Quinn_ does.”

“He still smokes?” Julia slips her shoes on.

“Not _officially_ ,” Carrie winks. “Hold on.”

With a conspiring grin, she fishes her phone from her purse and types quickly.

-Is he asleep?

Max replies within seconds.

-Yep.

-I’ll be up in five. Can you get his Marlboros for me?

-???

-His hospital night stand, top drawer

-I KNOW. Just not sure I should

-Fine. Wake him up and ask if Julia and I can borrow a cigarette

There’s a long pause.

-Jules smokes?

-Max…

-Fine. Meet me outside in five.

Carrie drops her phone back into her purse.

“All done. Good to go.”

Julia pauses. “Oh yeah. I’m kinda not _supposed_ to leave. The doctors are rounding and we’ve been told to stay put until they finish.”

“Jules…” Carrie shakes her head.

“We might need a diversion.” Julia winces apologetically.

“And you’re looking at me because…?”

“You’re the spook. You do the diversion.”

“Jesus... “ Carrie sighs, unable to resist a mischievous grin. “Fine. Stay here, count to thirty, then slip out. There’s a door leading to the service stairs across the hall from your room. I’ll meet you in the park.”

“Thirty? That’s all? And how do you know about the service stairs?”

Carrie’s smile widens as she scampers out the door. “Jules… you want a spook-worthy diversion? I don’t know what they teach you in the police academy… but leave it to the pros and do what you’re told.”

  
  
  


The hospital park is small, but it’s one of the most beautiful little pieces of heaven Carrie has ever seen. Drowning in green, shaded by the heavy branches of tall trees, it’s far from the main entrance, on the other side of the ambulance bay and away from the noise of the busy road nearby. It can get crowded - too crowded for Carrie’s taste - but it’s still pretty early in the morning and visiting hours haven’t even started yet. Also, most patients - normal patients, that is - are waiting for the doctors to finish the rounds.

She finds Julia on the far side, away from the back entrance, under an old tree. There’s a small table with two benches arranged on opposite sides. Julia has taken one, her legs crossed underneath her, her head tilted up, while her eyes explore a low hanging branch.

“Don’t,” Carrie gives her a small all-knowing smile, taking the bench across from her, then looking up as well.

Julia muffles a chuckle. “He’s told you.”

“Yep.” Carrie puts a wrinkled pack of Marlboros, a lighter and two tall cups of coffee on the table, and points to another spot, not far from the one Julia’s chosen. “We were sitting right there. He looked at this tree and started laughing.” She stops, remembering that day. But mostly having that feeling flooding her thoughts again: Quinn’s been laughing a lot lately. And for the life of her she couldn’t remember him so much as smiling, really smiling, in all the years she’d known him. Catching Julia’s eyes on her, she regroups and takes a sip from her coffee. “Anyway… He said _‘_ _If Jules were here, she'd be up that tree before she even knew what hit her_ _.’_ ”

Julia shakes her head and laughs. “He’s not wrong.”

They sip their coffee in silence for a while, listening to the birds. Suddenly, Carrie is not sure she wants to talk anymore. She just needs _this_ , the quiet. She’s not a fan of the outdoors. No cover - not safe. But, somehow, this is different. Because she _is_ safe, safer than she’s felt in many years, as far back as she can remember, actually. She’s taken in by a feeling of deep calm, an immense sense of belonging, that she can’t explain, and, probably for the first time in her life, is not trying to.

“What I said to you… when we first met…” The sound of her own words startles her. The topic, the fact that she just blurts it out like this, freaks her out even more. But she can’t stop herself anymore, “... when you…”

“... _‘slapped me’_ ,” Julia finishes the sentence, looking right at her now.

“Yes.” Carrie nods, looking into the foam on top of her latte. “It wasn’t entirely true, was it? What I said? About him leaving you and Johnny?”

Julia swallows around the lump in her throat. “No.”

Carrie levels her eyes with hers. “So, he didn’t just choose the job over you and your son. Something happened.”

Julia nods, but says nothing. She hasn’t talked about it for almost a decade. She’s still not sure she can go there. And it’s not the part about being attacked, beaten within an inch of her life, almost losing the baby, that makes it so painful. Even now.

“You two were really close, weren’t you?” Carrie knows the answer to that one. She may not know the whole story, but she’s seen them together.

“We were young and naive.” Julia’s voice is low, but it’s iron hard, almost snappy.

She reaches for the Marlboros, takes one out and lights it. A violent coughing spell follows.

Carrie’s eyes narrow. “You don’t really smoke, do you? Never have.”

Julia’s mouth curves up in a small appreciative smile. “You’re good.” One professional to another.

“So, all of this…” Carrie motions around. “Just to make me feel more comfortable about talking?”

“And you’re getting better by the minute.”

For a while Carrie watches her struggle with the smoke, coughing every time she tries to take a puff. She then unceremoniously takes the cigarette from her hand, inhales deeply and lets out a white cloud.

“Do you still love him?”

Julia smiles again, tilting her head to the side. “That’s not what you’ve come to talk about, is it?” she answers with a question of her own. When Carrie just smiles back, arching a brow, she shakes her head. “So, how weird is this?” Carrie’s expression shifts from thoughtful to quizzical. Julia gestures with her finger back and forth between them. “This. Talking about your feelings for a man with his ex? Say… on a scale from one to ten?”

Carrie doesn’t need to think about _that_ . “Twelve…” and after a short pause, “... _thousand_.”

Julia’s grin turns impish. “Well, tough tomatoes. Spill.”

Carrie shakes her head. She’s ready to _spill_ , alright. She just hasn’t figured out _what_. And, given her usual state of mind, which is precisely the opposite - when she knows what she wants to say, but is not necessarily ready to share it - she’s somewhat at a loss of words.

Sensing her confusion, Julia leans forward, resting her elbows on the table. “You can pick up where you left off...  when you said _‘Quinn called me this morning.’_ Or you can just get to the point and answer your own question.” When Carrie seems unsure of which question she’s referring to, Julia waves her hand. “Do you love him?”

“Pfffft…”

“That bad?”

Carrie stares at her for a while longer, then her eyes lose focus, her gaze traveling into the distance. “I don’t know. It’s not that simple.”

“Seems pretty simple to me. One of them ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions, you know.”

Carrie’s eyes fall back on Julia’s face, her chin wobbling. “But it’s not.”

“Not, as in… you’re not sure you love him? Not sure if you should? Not sure _how_ you love him?”

“The latter?” Carrie prompts, realising she’s not even ‘sure’ there isn’t _more_ to the list of things she’s not _sure_ about when it comes to Quinn. With a frustrated sigh, she lights another cigarette. “All of them. And probably more.”

“Okkkkay. One by one then?”

Carrie is beginning to lose her patience. _I don’t have the answers, don’t you get it? I usually do. But this is… utterly and profoundly fucked-up. And that’s why I’m here. And I’ve NEVER been here. Not even in college, not even in high school. I’ve NEVER talked to ANYONE about my feelings, not like this. So, just tell me. You KNOW him. You seem to know ME. More than I care for you to. Just tell me… Because everything I am, everything I’m feeling is lost half-way between my heart and my head and it’s not a place I can go to, not something I can figure out on my own._

“Before he called me this morning,” she finally says out loud, “he’d talked to you. What did he say?” Pathetic. She’s pathetic and pitiful. And angry. For asking, for caring, for needing to know… for everything.

Julia leans back. Her eyes squint. “You don’t really expect me to tell you that, do you? Or want me to? And you know I won’t. For once, I think you _know_ how _he_ feels. _And_ I don’t think you’d be here, talking to me, if you thought I’m the kind of person who blurts out shit that I’ve been told by a friend. I’m not the gossiping type, and I _definitely_ don’t think you’re looking for _gossip_ . Whatever he said to me, whatever I know, or _think_ , has nothing to do with what you’re feeling. Or what you’re going to do about it.”

“But you _do_ know,” Carrie insists, approaching new levels of self-loathing as she does.

“I have an _idea_ . Maybe. But you don’t want me to tell you what _I_ think you’re feeling, right?”

“Fuck…” Carrie takes out another cigarette.

“You’re about to finish his stash,” Julia laughs.

“Fuck him…”

“Do you want to?”

Carrie chokes on her puff and coughs. “Want what?”

“To fuck him.”

“Jesus…” Gulping the coffee to clear her throat. “And people say _I’m_ brutally blunt.”

“Do you?” Disregarding her remark, Julia keeps holding her stare.

“I don’t _know_.” Carrie grumbles finally. Then adds, “Maybe.”

“Then _tell_ him.”

“Really? _That’s_ your advice? Just go up and tell him I want to fuck him, _maybe_?”

“I’d recommend a more subtle approach, but basically… yeah.”

Carrie laughs, relaxing again. “Say I do… to what end?”

“Ok, I’m gonna assume we’re not talking about the actual _fucking_ anymore and to what _end_ people do _that._ But you _do_ understand that it’s something you two probably should talk about. And by _that_ I mean how you feel about each other. I mean, I’m happy to listen, maybe even tell you what I think… eventually… but in the end it’s between the two of you. And there seems to be something there. Why not just go for it?”

Carrie shakes her cup in a circular motion, watching the milk foam stir into the light brown liquid.

“I tried. I _think_. At least I wanted to. At one point. Maybe.”

“Care to be _more_ vague?” Julia laughs.

Carrie scoffs and looks away. Right.

“A little over two years ago. We almost tried. And when I say ‘maybe’, I mean it. I’m not being _vague_ . Because one day he comes to me and basically says we should give it a go. The next day he’s called away on a mission and never even tells me he’s leaving. He goes to Syria. Just like that. After telling me we should try to get out together… whatever _that_ meant.”

“So, he went to Syria. But he came back, right? At some point?”

“Yeah, he did. Fucking _two and a half years later_.”

“Jesus…”

“No shit.” Carrie reaches into her purse, but before taking out what she’s searching for, she looks at Julia. “Can I show you something?” When Julia nods, with a ‘Go ahead’ gesture, she takes out a manila envelope. She holds it for a while, staring at her name written on top of it. Not because she’s unsure if she wants Julia to read it, but because she doesn’t know, or is afraid to know, what she’ll make of it, or what it really has to do with her own feelings. “When we first found him… ok, a couple of days later… after _you_ showed up, and all the drama around waking him up… or _not_ … Dar gave it to me. I guess it was back when the doctors didn’t give him much of a chance. It’s a…”

“Beneficiary letter,” Julia interrupts her. “I know. A goodbye letter.” The chills are running up and down her spine despite the warm day.

Carrie feels her eyes well up, for the first time thinking about the life Julia had led with him all those years ago, shadowed by uncertainty, dreading the day a letter like this would arrive at her doorstep instead of the man she loves coming home from a mission. Four years of ‘Syria’. On and off. Never knowing, never being sure he’d come back, yet never giving up.

Overwhelmed by the new found compassion and affection for this woman, she battles an urge to stand up, circle the table and hold her. Because that’s the question, isn’t it? Would she herself _ever_ be able to do that? Did she love him _that_ much?

It’s a short letter. Carrie knows it by heart. It’s angered her to no end. What he’s saying, the way he sees himself. Fucking darkness. He’s been the light of her life. And his last, or _supposedly_ last, words to her are all about fucking darkness that he sees himself a part of, that he sees following him everywhere, pulling him back.

She watches Julia read and notices her smile all of a sudden, then shake her head and smile wider. Carrie is even more confused now. Because there’s _nothing_ even _remotely_ heartwarming about that letter.

“What?” she fires impatiently.

Julia lifts her eyes. “It’s that line in the end, before he says he loves you. _The light on the headlands_ … I’ve heard that line before. In those exact words. That’s what love is about for him, what he thinks love means. It’s what he always needed, what he always wanted for himself. It’s how he knew he was loved. And that’s what he wanted to be for you. And for _him_ , that says it all.”

“But the rest of it…” Carrie insists. “It’s so…”

Julia hands the letter back to her. “The rest of it is just… Johnny. I mean, Peter… _Quinn_ .” She finally settles on a name that Carrie prefers. “Look, I don’t know exactly what happened. Why he left, what went down between the two of you. But it seems to me that he’s owning up to his shit here. He’s telling you... _it’s not on you, Carrie, it’s on me_. He’s always been harsh on himself like that, always took responsibility, and I think you know that. I don’t know why he had to go, but he’s saying to you that he had to, and it wasn’t your fault, it had nothing to do with you.”

“But it had _everything_ to do with me!” Carrie stands up abruptly and takes a few steps back, then turns around, her face red, her eyes teary. “He’s written that letter to _me_ . When he was leaving _me_ . After asking _me_ to try a life with him.”

“You sure about that?” The calm in Julia’s voice is like salt on Carrie’s open wounds. “Because it seems to me that what he’s saying is that he tried, he hoped, but in the end he couldn’t. For whatever reason, that had more to do with him, his life, his duty, than it had to do with you… maybe he wasn’t sure it would work out, maybe he wasn’t sure he could ever give you the life he wanted to… I don’t know, I’m just speculating here. But I don't think that his feelings about you, or whatever you might or might not have felt for him, had anything to do with him going away.”

Seeing Carrie turning pale, blood draining from her face, Julia softens up.

“Look, you’ve come to me because I know him, right? So, this is what it feels like to me. I’m _guessing_ he was called away. And he left. It’s fucked-up, considering what he _does_ , but maybe it seemed like the safer choice. Because for many years that had been his life, his _only_ life. And I’m guessing he was afraid he’d fuck it up again, for the both of you. Because he always knew he would leave again, sooner or later. See, he’s been down that road before. And when it ended, he had to rip his heart out of his own chest with his bare hands so he could walk away. It’s not an experience a person cares to repeat. And he had to watch me do the same. And he didn’t want to put you through the same thing. But, Carrie… that’s not the question, now, is it? ‘Cause he is back. And, if you want, you can still pick up where you left off.”

Carrie sits down. She’s quiet for a long time, just smoking, not even touching her coffee.

“Do I want to?”

“Well, that _is_ the question.”

“The thing is…” Carrie looks away. “When he left… _after_ he left. For a while, I was obsessed, trying to find him. But I also felt…” looking for the right word.

“Relieved?” Julia suggests.

There are tears in Carrie’s eyes again when she shifts her gaze to Julia’s face. “Yes.” She swallows hard. “Because I _wasn’t_ sure. It was all… it happened when I was very emotional, we both were. Lost of shit had gone wrong. And I think… we were both trying to find a way to make things right, a way back to a normal life. But before that night I’d never thought about him like that. I mean, _he_ obviously had. But not me. And I don’t think I ever really thought about _what_ he meant to me before that day. Not seriously.”

“But you have now. You have been ever since, haven’t you? And you know he means a lot.”

“He does. More than a lot.”

“But… not enough?”

“Oh, fuck, this is hard…” Carrie puts her arms on the table and leans in. “I think it’s more than enough. I think it’s more than…” She tries to formulate that thought. “Do you think you can love a person more than you want to have a life with them? More than that, but not _like_ that?”

Julia smiles. “Yeah, I do. How do you know it’s not _like_ that, though?”

Disregarding her last question, Carrie throws herself into something that’s finally making sense.

“If we tried, and we failed… if I hurt him, or if he hurt me… for whatever reason… if I lost him, what I have of him _now_ , I don’t think I could live with that.”

“Carrie, that’s like the _dumbest_ , most _chicken-shit_ reason not to be with someone that I’ve _ever_ heard of.”

“Is it?” Carrie’s face twitches in pain. “Because that’s what I feel. I can live with never having him like that, but I know for a fact that I couldn’t live with trying, failing and losing him, and not having him at all. Even the thought of it scares the shit out of me to the point of wanting to run back home and never see him again.”

“Right, because _that_ makes sense even _more_.”

“But it _does_ . To _me_ . Because that’s how much he means to me. _More_ than that. It's more than what he could have been if we were together, more than he wanted for _us_ . Or at least _used_ to want.” Carrie takes several deep breaths. “Because the more I think about it, the more I wonder if I was ready to try and give him that simply because of what he’d always been to me, because of how much he _means_ to me.”

Julia reaches across the table and puts a hand over Carrie’s. “How do you know if you never tried? I hear you, I do. I see what you mean. He’s special to you. I know the feeling, believe me. He’s… special. He’s a human fortress, the most honest, uncompromising, beautiful and loving man I’ve ever met. But, Carrie,” she squeezes Carrie’s hand in her palm. “You never answered my question. How do you know it’s _not_ like that?”

“Because…” Carrie exhales loudly, trying to sort through her many thoughts, countless pieces of the puzzle finally clicking into places in her head. “He’s never the groom.”

Julia looks lost for a moment, then bursts into laughter. And Carrie hears what she’s just said and how, although it makes complete sense, given the imagery in her head, it’s completely out of context.

“Ok, I’m gonna need more access to that head of yours to interpret _that_ one,” Julia laughs.

“Fine.” Carrie huffs in exasperation, unable to help a smile. “But you’re gonna laugh your ass off.”

Julia points to her own face, indicating to Carrie she’s already there, then tries to regain a serious expression. “I won’t. I promise. Shoot.”

Carrie tries to find the right words to explain the only picture in her head that actually makes sense. She takes a deep breath.

“Whenever I picture myself… _maybe_ getting married…” Here she goes. “Which _does_ happen… my _imagining it_ , I mean… no matter how… uncharacteristic… Quinn’s never the groom. He’s the best man. Always.”

She stops, knowing there’s really nothing more she can say to make this any clearer. And Julia seems to get it, because she doesn’t laugh, just nods. Then there’s that damn naughty smile again.

“You know brides don’t get to have best men, though, right? In your head… are you marrying Max?”

“Jules!”

“Fine, just saying.” Julia smiles wider. “So, it’s kind of like _‘My best friend’s wedding’_ , but in reverse?”

“Yes.” Carrie hasn’t watched a lot of movies, but this came out when she was in college, and what’s more, it actually makes more sense than she’d given it credit for at the time. “But you understand what I mean, right?”

“I do.” Julia holds one of Carrie’s hands with both of hers now. “Your best man is that one person. The one who’s always been there for you and always will be. The one you come to when your marriage seems to go down the crapper. The one who knows you so well he embarrasses the shit out of you in his speech at your wedding, but also makes you feel just how lucky you are to have someone who’s been through all that with you, who can complete your sentence, who knows your darkest thoughts and still loves you.”

Carrie can’t hold the tears back anymore and they just run down her face and neck, blurring the surroundings. “That’s Quinn,” she whispers with a quiet sob.

“Oh boy…” Julia circles the table, lowers herself next to Carrie and draws her close, pressing her head against her shoulder, stroking her hair, then her back. “Just tell him _that_ . But _tell_ him.”

When Carrie lifts her head, Julia smiles into her moist eyes, softly wiping her tears.

“He’s not a child, Carrie. You don’t need to protect him. He’d be the _first_ one to tell you that. Life’s no fairytale. Love is not forever. It might hurt him for a while. But he’ll value you being honest with him, and you know that. Eventually, he’ll get over it. And so will you. You’ll find that spot, maybe not right away, but with time… where you’re both happy with what you’ve become for each other. Or maybe… you’ll find out that he _could_ be the ‘groom’. That you _do_ love him like that. But you’ve got to _talk_ . And the mere fact that I’m sick of saying that just proves my point. And Carrie… based on what you’ve said… you kinda owe him that much. The truth. I don’t know what he wants now, or what he’s hoping for, and maybe in the end you two _will_ end up together. But in any case, I think he deserves to know.”

Carrie is about to reply, when a voice behind them makes them both turn around.

“Do I even wanna  know what the two of you are talking about?” There’s a smile in the tone with which those words are spoken. It matches the smile on Quinn’s face as they see him slowly making his way towards them, one arm around Max’s shoulders.

His eyes are an incredible shining bright blue, as he looks at both of them, together, then separately. Max seems fairly uncomfortable and embarrassed when they stop just a few feet away. He shifts his weight from one foot to another and tries to avoid any of their stares.

Julia is the first one that speaks, answering his question. “None of your damn business.” She jumps up and quickly approaches. “Morning, sleeping beauty.” She hugs him briefly and gives him a peck on a cheek. “I gotta go back. See you guys later.” She throws a meaningful look at Max, which he seems to get.

Quinn’s eyes narrow suspiciously. “Where are _you_ going?” he asks Julia.

“Uh… doctors rounds.”

“ _Right_.” He arches an eyebrow, not buying any of it, but knowing it’s a futile exercise to argue with this woman. He reaches a hand to her face. “How’re you feeling?”

“With all the morphine you pumped into me last night?” Julia laughs. “ _High_ . And _late_ . To _doctors rounds_. Bye.”

She’s about to sprint off when he catches her by the wrist, pulls her in and drops a kiss on the top of her head. She’s got him, both him and Carrie, right where she wants them. She’s shamelessly smug and happy about it. And he can’t even _force_ himself to be grumpy, looking at her glowing face.

“I hate you.” He shakes his head at her, unable to stop smiling. “I fucking hate you.”

Julia tops that by sticking out her tongue. “Hate you more. Have fun.” And with that she’s gone, leaving the three others to wonder what’s next.

Max helps Quinn sit on the bench and looks around uncomfortably. “I better go too. Make sure… Jules finds… Ummm… her room. Doctors rounds and all.”

Quinn rolls his eyes, glances at Carrie, who does the same, and just shakes his head. Max takes it as his cue and leaves as well.

They stare at each other across the table, not speaking for a while. When Quinn reaches for her hand, Carrie doesn’t move it. She breaks down, tears flowing free again, her head falling until it comes to rest on the back of his wrist.

He slowly gets up, leaning heavily on the table, and stumbles around it. She doesn’t offer to help him. She knows he’ll make it. And she knows what it means to him to be able to.

He sits next to her and gently pulls her up, then wraps his arms around her. Leaning against his chest, next to his heart, Carrie thinks about having just been here, minutes ago, with a different person, but not really. Being surrounded by love like nothing she’s ever felt, feeling safer than she could ever imagine.

She needs him. Right now. More than she’s ever needed anyone. She feels herself moving closer, lacing her arms around him as well. He’s like gravity, _her_ gravity, her anchor, the one constant in all the craziness of her life, of this world. After all, he _is_ her light on the headlands. She can feel him breathing, his heart beating so close, so steady. His fingers in her hair, just stroking, running through, gentle and comforting.

“Quinn…” she whispers into his shoulder. And she feels him place a soft kiss next to her ear.

“Mmmm?”

Without moving away, she lifts her hand, touching his face, his forehead, then his hair.

“You know I do…” _love you_ , she means to finish. But she doesn’t.

The circle of his arms around her tightens, he draws her closer, and she can feel him heave a long sigh. It’s not bitter, just a little sad. Because she doesn’t need to say more. Not right now. Because, like always, he knows.

“Yeah,” he whispers into her hair and presses his lips into it again.

And somehow, he doesn’t sound hurt, or disappointed. Because all he wants her to feel is that it’s ok. It’s enough. And it doesn’t seem to matter to him if it’s for now or for always, if it’ll ever change. He’s her Quinn again. He knows her better than anyone, sometimes better than she knows herself. And he’s here to catch her, when she plunges into the abyss of her own making. He knows. Maybe, he’s known for a while. But what he needs _her_ to know, is that he’ll never let go, he’ll take whatever she can give, and he’ll never stop being for her what she’s afraid of losing the most.

Because he loves her. More than he wants to have her.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> None would be possible without you, NikitaSunshine, NONE! We've had our judgment day, our ultimate test of HL. We did it! Or at least in our own way we did. And this would never be what it is without you. You're my gravity and I fucking love you.
> 
> Gnomecat and Violiko, for your every day support, for your encouragement and faith... Thank you, as always!!!
> 
> xoxoxo


	10. The Road to Neverland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > **_“Do not hold your breath for anyone,  
>  Do not wish your lungs to be still,  
> It may delay the cracks from spreading,  
> But eventually they will.  
> Sometimes to keep yourself together  
> You must allow yourself to leave,  
> Even if breaking your own heart  
> Is what it takes to let you breathe.”  _ **
>> 
>> **_― Erin Hanson_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To NikitaSunshine, the real wizard behind this story. You're the voice in my head, and then you're the voice in this tale. You make it solid, you fight for every truth, and you keep us both tethered to the reason we're here. Anything you touch becomes just right. Anything you write leaves me at awe, over and over again. It seems so effortless, while I KNOW it isn't.  
> xoxoxo

**2006**

His hands shake as he tries to slide the key into the lock. The hallway is dark, and he’d rather not turn the lights on. Johnny takes a deep breath. When that doesn’t help, he tries a couple more. Clenching and unclenching his fists is the best way he knows to stop the trembling. Usually, his hands are as steady as solid steel after doing it just once. It takes more than five times now before he can unlock the door to his own home.

It’s a little after 3am. He slips in quietly.

His favourite lamp on the night stand is on. Julia never turns it off at night when he’s away, he knows. She joked once that with him being named after Peter Pan, she should leave the window open as well, but it gets too fucking cold, so she settles for the light of his lamp.

The gesture would have made more sense tonight than ever. Because he is Peter now. Forever. Today was the day he’d dreamt about for fifteen years.

The first question Julia had asked him when he told her his family’s story was why he never changed his name in the end. He said it was too painful. And it was true. But there was more to it. Something he could never tell her. Because he’d been waiting. For today.

He needs to take a shower. His clothes are all new. He’d bought them in Baltimore, just before. He knows he’ll probably need to hide them. Julia’s been the one buying his clothes for years now. She knows everything he owns to the last pair of socks. And she’s not a fool. He’ll also need to come up with an excuse as to what happened to the clothes he was wearing this morning when he drove off to Langley. The truth is, they are a pile of ashes in an old building’s trash incinerator.

Julia has never asked him about his work. He tells her the bits he can. He wants to tell her about all of it, but that’s not really an option. What pains him the most is that this time he’ll have to lie to her. He never has before. But he didn’t go to Langley. He wasn’t at work. What he did wasn’t a government secret he needed to protect. He’s committed a crime, on American soil, and he’s about to slip into bed with an officer of the law. And the only person in the world who would probably understand. But she can never find out.

Johnny lowers himself onto the edge of their bed, careful not to wake her up. Her side is closer to the window, so that she’s able to hold his hand when he’s reading in his armchair. She’s facing the door now, her arm crossing over to his side despite him not being there, her face nuzzled between her pillow and his.

He looks at her for a long time. She’s a vision of peace and serenity - everything his life is not. He needs her so much that it hurts. He needs _himself_ the way he is when he’s with her, now more than ever.

When he finally slips under the covers, having taken a shower and changed into his pajama pants, Julia wakes up. He moves closer, sliding his arms around and underneath her, drawing her all the way in, until her warmth, her soul-shattering tenderness, dulls all of his senses just enough to push the events of the day to the back of his head.

“Go back to sleep,” he whispers, cradling her head in the fold of his shoulder, kissing her sleepy face.

“Gosh, you’re freezing,” she murmurs, pulling the blanket up to his neck and tucking it behind his back. “What time is it?”

“Almost four. I just got home about an hour ago, had something to eat, took a shower…” He tells her all that because he knows she’ll ask anyway, and if he hasn’t, she’ll get up and rewarm the food for him.

“Good boy,” she giggles and snuggles closer. “Was work ok?”

“Yeah. Just sleep, silly.” Johnny buries his face in her hair, breathing her scent, feeling her everywhere: her hand traveling up and down the curvature of his spine, her legs intertwined with his, her lips next to his chest curved into a joyful smile.

Minutes go by and he knows she’s not drifting off. Her fingers on his bare back become more impatient, demanding, her breathing is shallow, fast, hot and moist against his skin.

“Johnny…” she sighs, her hand slipping to his chest, then up his neck, into his hair. She pulls his head closer, finds his mouth, kisses his smile until it disappears and she can feel him let out a soft moan. “I don’t think I can sleep now,” she whispers against his lips, gasping for air as they press against hers again and his hand slips under her pajama top.

“Really…” breathless already, he laughs, pushing her to her back with the weight of his body, kissing her deeper.

The world fades away, along with everything that’s happened today. All that’s left is Julia, her taste, her scent, the way she loves him, passionate, overwhelming, the way he loves her, with everything he is and ever was, the way he feels about himself when he’s in her arms. When she trembles under his touch, arches against him, almost sobs with pleasure, he forgets all the other things he can do with his hands, all the lives they have taken. Even today. All he wants, all he needs is right here, all around him, all his.

Long after he still holds her, unable to break away. He brushes his lips over hers, again and again, whispering words that make little or no sense at all, and yet somehow they make her smile. He kisses her face, her eyelids, shedding parts of today with every kiss, his mouth wanders aimlessly and softly, stopping for long and lingering moments, then moving again, craving and finding more of her.

“Johnny, something happened,” he feels her hand sliding from the small of his back all the way to his head, then the side of his face. It’s not a question. She knows.

He turns to place a gentle kiss inside her palm. Then looks into her eyes again. “Why do you say that?”

“You’re sad,” she whispers, caressing his face with the tips of her fingers.

He tries to smile. “I’m happy, silly. Deliriously-fucking-crazy happy.”

“Bullshit.”

“Have I ever lied to you?” he lifts an eyebrow.

“You are _now_.” It’s not really an accusation. She doesn’t need the details. But she knows him too well.

Johnny slides off of her, without letting go, turning her to her side to face him, holding her close and tight. “It’s… I’m ok, really. You know that, right?” She nods and he kisses her again, squinting his eyes shut. God, he wants to tell her, all of it. “I’ve changed my name today,” he whispers finally, the only thing he _can_ divulge.

She’s been waiting for him to do that- he always said he would. But there’s something else, something sad, heartbreaking, that she can’t quite put a finger on. For whatever reason he can’t tell her. Maybe it’s work, maybe he had to change his name because something happened at work. Julia tries to let go of the uneasy feeling inside her.

Smiling, she nuzzles her face into his. “So… Did I just have sex with _Peter Quinn_?”

He trembles with laughter in her arms. “You _did_.”

“Mphhhhhh…” She moves her head further away and props it in the fold of his elbow. A playful smile crawls into her eyes and spreads all over her face. “I gotta tell you… he’s… quite skilled.”

His face is a collage of content and joy, painted randomly over a shy grin. “Actually… he might not be done for tonight.”

“We’ll test that theory in a minute,” she says, giving him a teasing kiss. “For now… new ground rules? Am I expected to scream ‘Peter’ from now on? Coz the neighbors might wonder if I’m cheating on you.”

He flips to his back, pulling her on top of him, then up, until her face is right above his and her arms lace under and around his neck.

“As long as I’m the one making you scream, you can yell Brad Pitt for all I care.”

Julia winces, considering it. “Eh. Too blond. But hey… can I yell… George? Oh-oh-oh! Or Collin?”

“As in… Clooney? And Firth?”

“Yep.”

“Sure. They’re um…  handsome… I _think_. Any other preferences?”

“Can I yell… Crazy badass motherfucker?”

“You already _do_ ,” he laughs. “Well, you _try_. Seeing how usually you can neither pronounce nor finish it.”

She giggles. “Aaaaand… If I scream the name of my old boyfriend… I suppose Peter Quinn won’t mind?”

He arches a sly brow. “Now, that _depends…_ ” She’s had several boyfriends before him, and even in this silly mood he _h_ _as to_ d raw a line _somewhere._

“Pleeeease… His name was Johnny, and he was so goddamn sexy!” she clarifies, kissing his smile as it just becomes wider and brighter.

Her long wavy hair is like a screen, shielding them from the world around them.

“Sure,” he breathes a whisper, still smiling. “I don’t care, silly. Call me anything you want. Scream… whatever name you want.” His eyes crinkle deeper as his grin widens even more. “As long as you _do_.”

Julia lowers her head and traces butterfly kisses all the way from his nose to his ear. “It means so much to you. This name. And to me, too. It might take me awhile... to get used to it. But I’ll get there… _Peter_.”

He literally gasps, feeling the breath of her saying his name reach his skin, followed by her mouth pressing softly in the same spot.

His arms draw a tighter circle around her, his hand slips into her hair, tangling his fingers between the silky strands. “You mean more,” he finds her lips, dissolving into their soft warmth.

The first time she says it, it’s a mere whisper. The next time makes his heart almost stop, then race again, even faster. She moans, almost weeps “Peter,” against his mouth and he can barely breathe. Scantily slurring coherent words, he begs her to say it again. And she does. Over and over, sometimes mixing up letters and dropping syllables into the haze of what’s left of her conscious thought, when neither of them can stop any longer.

He’s drifting off, finally defeated by exhaustion. Still holding her close, like he does every night. But it’ll never be close enough to make up for all the nights she sleeps alone while he’s in some hole, thousands of miles away from her.

“Peter,” she calls, and she can feel his smile forming next to her forehead.

His kiss falls on her hairline. “Sleep, silly. I’ll still be Peter in the morning.”

“Why today?” Julia asks, and his eyes fly open. The tiredness is gone, and everything inside him turns cold.

“What do you mean?”

“Why did you change your name _today_? Did something happen at work? You don’t need to tell me what.”

He can’t. He fucking can’t. Can’t lie to her and can’t tell her the truth. About what he’s done. About where he’s been.

“No, nothing that has to do with work.” It’s the truth, the only truth he can afford to tell without hurting her, without making her choose between her oath as an officer of the law and her love for him.

She looks into his eyes long and hard. He holds her stare. He also holds his breath. There’s a part of him that wants her to see, into him, all of him, everything he did, everything he is.

“Please…” the other part of him begs, as he leans in and presses his lips to her forehead in a long desperate kiss, “...don’t ask me more.”

“Ok,” Julia whispers, stroking his hair. “Ok.”

She won’t ask. Ever. Because she knows. She’s known for a while. He’s been looking for them, the people who took everything he had, everything he loved, away from him fifteen years ago. She’s been looking for them as well. She and Stevenson, both. They picked up the cold case, having gotten permission from Baltimore PD. They will never find them now, she knows. Because fifteen years after twenty innocent lives were taken in a brutal shootout, justice has finally been served. Today. It’s the wrong kind of justice, maybe. But it’s justice, nevertheless, for a boy who’d lost his whole world on that day, for all of them.

She wants to ask if he’s been careful, if he’s taken care of the evidence. But she won’t. He won’t tell her. He won’t put her in that position, not even if she begs him to.

“Never lie to me again.” She kisses him, brushing her lips against his in soft motions, soothing him with every touch. “About being sad…”

He cradles her head in his palm, his thumb sliding up and down the soft skin of her face. “I won’t. I promise. And I’m not sad anymore. I swear. And you fucking know why.”

She smiles, wrinkles her nose and rubs it against his. “Coz I make you deliriously happy? When I scream and all?”

“No,” he laughs. “When you _scream and all_ you make me ‘lose-my-fucking-mind-and-go-mad’ happy. Deliriously happy is more of an… everyday term, all the time, every minute I’m with you.”

“Aww… you’re so… charmingly _full of it_ ,” she murmurs, cuddling next to his chest and holding him tighter.

He huffs, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. “Just fucking sleep already, you smug shameless tease.” But he presses his cheek to the top of her head, letting out a sigh of delight and bliss.

“Night… _Peter._ ”

Peter finds her hand, brings it to his face and kisses her fingers, one by one, then her palm, the inside of her wrist. “Night, angel,” he whispers, placing it over his neck and covering it with his.

She dozes off in the circle of his arms when it’s almost dawn. A new day. He watches the sky change colors: light brown at first, then a fiery orange, tinged with blood red, then shining yellow. The first rays of the morning sun creep in through their window, leisurely crawling across his chair, onto their bed, Julia’s shoulder, his hand curled around it, then his face, his eyes.

He thinks about Adele, Braiden and Lizzy. What he’s done. What they would think of him, if they _knew_ what he’s done, what his life has become. How he tried to stop thinking about it all those years but never could. It doesn’t feel like justice. Not anymore. He thought it would bring him peace, after all this time. It didn’t. The only peace he knows is right here, sleeping between his arms.

Fifteen years ago, a boy who wanted to be Peter Quinn had so many dreams. His mother prayed for him to find love and happiness. And he did. When he looks into Julia’s eyes, he forgets that most of the time he thinks he doesn’t deserve it, any of it, that he can never be redeemed. He’s Peter Quinn _now_. Peter Quinn will have a different life, make different choices. He will leave the war behind and never look back. He will have children, will be there to raise them, every day. He will give the woman he loves a home she deserves, for everything she’s done for him, been for him, for everything she is.

Right before his eyes close and he finally falls asleep himself, he smiles. It’s a new day, new name, new life. He’s out. He _will_ be out. It’s just a matter of time now.

  


**2008**

“Sure, I can come in. No, not a problem at all. I have time.” Julia keeps her voice low, hoping that Johnny can finally quiet down and go to sleep, gently rocking his crib, while she’s on the phone with Baltimore PD. “Well, it might take some time… with the traffic.” She looks at the clock on the wall. Yeah, it will take her at least three hours in one direction. Maybe more. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Thanks. You too.”

She looks into her son’s blue eyes and smiles. Sleeping is out of the question. When she leans in to pick him up, he stretches his chubby arms towards her, happily thumping his little feet against the mattress and giggling.

“C’mere, you stubborn troublemaker.” She sniffs his head and tickles his tiny baby neck with ringing kisses, making him laugh harder. “Mommy’s gonna get dressed, and guess what? We’re going on a trip. Yay!” She bounces him in her arms, walking into her bedroom and picking the first outfit she lays her eyes on.

Getting dressed and putting on makeup as a new mom is one of those “mission impossible” scenarios. Even more so because Johnny is a generally quiet, smiley, and incredibly cuddly baby, whose only desire in life is to be held so he can snuggle against her chest and stuff his cute face into the curve of her neck. She keeps wondering if it’s a genetic trait, passed on from his father, or whether it’s one of those nurture over nature things, that she’s engendered in both of them.

As she approaches her car, fumbling with the baby bag to find her keys, she sees Stevenson, leaning on the hood. It’s not a coincidence, she knows. She’s still on maternity leave, but he’s probably been kept in the loop. It still strikes her as odd that someone managed to reopen the investigation into her attack, which took place almost eight months ago now. She’d been under the impression that a federal order to cease-and-desist for reasons of national security had put an end to that.

Seeing Andrew, Johnny starts to fidget in her arms, reaching for his best pal. Stevenson looks like a big baby himself, snatching Julia’s son from her hands and swinging him up in the air above his head. He’s the only one who calls him JJ. Seeing how he refused to call his father anything but J, even after he’d changed his name, Julia lets him have it.

“I’m guessing you’re coming with?” She opens the back door, throwing the baby bag in and starting to arrange Johnny’s car seat.

“Yeah. It’s a…” he coughs, clearing his throat, looking at Johnny as if the infant could understand what he’s about to say. Then looks back at Julia: “It ain’t the kind of place you wanna take a baby to, Jules.”

______________________

Stevenson was right about that. She’d been called to try to ID her attacker. But he’s not in a holding cell. She’s being shown to the medical examiner’s office, thanking Andrew in her heart for tagging along to stay outside with the baby.

It had been over eight months. But she knows him right away. It’s him for certain, lying on the steel table. The man who ambushed her in the alley and beat her up so badly that she’d almost lost her unborn son, spent the next month in the hospital following two major surgeries to save her life, recovering from a severe concussion.

It all comes back - the fear, the helplessness, worrying about the baby, about his father. Her fists clench so hard that she can feel the nails cutting into her skin.

“Take as much time as you need.” The medical examiner is about to leave, but she stops him.

“Do you have the cause of death?” She can see the Y-incision on the body, indicating that at least one post-mortem has been performed.

“Massive internal bleeding,” he says, shaking his head, pulling off the sheet and uncovering the body. “Well, aside from all the _rest_.”

Julia gasps. There are signs of terrible torture on this man’s hands and feet, his fingernails are torn off, some fingers broken, knuckles smashed. His knee caps are shot through. She’s seen beaten bodies before, but this is a whole other level of shocking. He’s covered with bruises, all over his chest and abdomen, arms and legs.

“Jesus Christ…” She looks away, motions for the coroner to cover the body.

“My impression...” She hears his voice much closer now, as he comes to stand by her side. “He’s been beaten to death, by a blunt object or someone’s bare hands. And, judging by the signs of torture, I’d bet on the latter. Lots of rage.”

“Oh God…” she whispers, almost inaudibly.

“As I said… you can take as much time as you need.”

The coroner walks away, and the heavy metal door closes behind him.

Julia covers her mouth with her palm, tears streaming down her face. The rage. It’s not just the rage, she knows. It’s pain. Agony. It’s the last cry of a dying soul.

“Oh God, Johnny, what have you done...” she muffles a heart-shattering sob into her hand.

She turns away. She can’t look at the lifeless face of that body. All she can see, every time she does, is the man she loves, the man she’s lost. Her beautiful, gentle, smiling Johnny, the father of her son. He’s gone. All that’s left is this… _Rage_. The body of a man he’d tortured and killed with his bare hands. The same hands that held her, caressed her, loved her. A crushed finger for every crushed dream.

The thought of him out there, alone, consumed by grief, having nothing left to live for but war, brings her to her knees. She slumps down, crying harder. She wants to run out, to the street, scream at the top of her lungs, shout his name until he hears her, until he comes back. So that she can hold him, tell him she won’t let his world kill him, she won’t let him go, no matter what.

But she can’t. Because she knows she won’t be able to protect him anymore than he’d be able to protect her and their son. He’s gone for good, having given up everything he ever wanted so that she and his child could have this life that was meant for three.

He’s killed this man, slowly, by systematic torture… for what he’d done to her. He’s gone. They are both gone.

______________________________

She washes her face with cold water for a long time, then re-applies her makeup, before heading out of the medical examiner’s office.

The officer in charge of the investigation, Ricky Meyers, is an old friend of Andrew’s. They’re waiting for her outside. She walks up to them resolutely, taking Johnny from Stevenson’s arms.

“It’s not him,” she says, leveling a calm gaze into Ricky’s eyes.

“What do you mean it’s not him?” His brow furrows.

“I mean, it’s not him,” she replies in the same soft confident voice. “That’s not the man who attacked me.”

“There’s _evidence_. A partial foot print, maybe even DNA.”

It’s bullshit. There’s no evidence. There had never been any evidence. Not from when she was attacked. The case was closed three days later. But there might be evidence _now_ , connecting this man to Johnny through her. She needs to break the link. If this man is not the one who attacked her, then her ex-boyfriend is not a suspect in his murder. Any leads they might have will be thrown off course.

“I don’t know what to tell you. I remember the man. It’s not him.”

“He looks _exactly_ like the man that the sketch artist drew based on your description.”

“Maybe. But I was attacked in Philly, this is Baltimore. People look alike, shit happens. I’m telling you, it’s not him.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Ricky lets out a frustrated sigh and looks at Stevenson. “Say something. This is _madness_ . It _is_ the man.”

Andrew’s eyes grow darker, when he turns to his friend. “You saying she’s lying? She’s taken an oath to protect and serve, same as you and me. If she says it ain’t your guy,  then it ain’t him. End of story. You wanna put her on the stand and have her repeat that under oath, you do that. You’ve asked for identification. The only witness denies it’s your guy. Take her statement. You ain’t gonna get a different one.”

Ricky deflates, looking surrendered He shoots an apologetic glance in Julia’s direction, but feels compelled to hear her say it one more time nevertheless.

“Are you sure? One hundred percent sure?”

“Hey, I risked my _life_ to take a good look at that piece of shit. I _remember_ what he looked like. And the man in your morgue just isn’t him.”

_______________________________

She signs some forms, gives a written statement, and they drive back home.

Stevenson doesn’t say a word the whole time, the whole two and a half hours. He doesn’t even look at her, just stares dead ahead at the road. But his eyes are glassy, filled with tears. When they drive up to her street, he can’t take it anymore and reaches for her hand.

“Goddamnit, Jules,” is all he says.

  


**2016**

“Your move.” For a genuinely shy, self-conscious, and somewhat sheepish person, Max seems rather full of himself, as he leans back in his chair and crosses his arms on his chest. He looks at his opponent (opponents- plural, actually) and can’t help the small smile already creeping in. “ _Any_ move. Any time now.” He glances at the chess timer.

It’s the first time that he’s managed to convince Quinn to play with a chess-clock. Normally they play in relaxed mode. Especially if Max takes the night shift and Quinn can’t sleep. They can play literally from dusk to dawn, taking their time, talking about every move. They both enjoy it immensely, albeit for different reasons.

Max loves talking about chess and strategy. Often enough, the conversation stirs towards math, numbers, probabilities, algorithms, and even electronics. He has to admit that Quinn doesn’t know nearly as much as he needs to in order to have a really challenging conversation, but he seems to catch up fast, surprisingly fast. Max is still fairly intimidated by Quinn, even more so as a result of the new heights of respect and admiration that he’s found for this man since he first got to Berlin. But that didn’t stop him one day from pointing out that, in his opinion, Quinn is kind of wasting his clearly mathematical mind on… well, what he does. He regretted it for a second, seeing how Quinn’s head snapped up and his stare got a little too intense, even scary. But then, despite huffing in frustration, he smiled and shook his head, saying, “That’s the question, isn’t is?”

Quinn’s reaction time has improved dramatically over the last three weeks. There are still signs of neuropathy and some delays in his processing, but it’s barely noticeable anymore and Max insisted that playing with a chess-clock might be a good mental exercise. Reluctantly, Quinn agreed. Which doesn’t seem to stop him from shooting menacing looks at the game timer every time it’s his move. Max is comforted in the knowledge that if he ends up throwing it against the wall, he has a spare.

At first, Quinn convinces himself to treat the chess-clock as a mission timeframe. It’s simple, he tells himself over and over. You have limited time and a single task- make up your mind, make your move, hit the clock. What aggravates him in the end is not being limited in time, it’s the panic that takes over every time Max hits his button. His mind races, grasping at pieces of thoughts. All the possible moves seem either too numerous or too scarce. He finds himself looking at the clock and panicking even more. He tries to find comfort in the thought that it’s not really a mission, that no one’s life depends on his next move, but it rarely helps. And yes, he’s thought about throwing the damn thing against the wall on more than one occasion.

Finally, he leans towards the board and makes his move.

“Dad!” Max’s _other_ opponent, sitting on his father’s knee, secured by Quinn’s arm around his waist, throws his hands in the air. “What are you doing?”

“Just hit the clock,” Quinn urges him. Truthfully, he has no clue what he’s doing at that point.

As Max’s clock starts ticking, Quinn wedges his chin into his son’s shoulder, assessing the situation on the board. “Yeah, we’re…” He stops himself. He’s been consciously trying to improve his lexicon, especially around Johnny.

“... fucked.” Johnny completes his sentence, which earns him his father’s palm covering his mouth. Barely coherent, he mumbles the rest into Quinn’s hand. “Mom says it’s ok if I swear, as long as it’s not at school or in front of strangers.”

Quinn shakes his head. “Mom and I are gonna have a long talk.”

“Grandma Adele thought it was cool. Mom said _you_ told her that.”

Quinn throws an arm around his son’s neck and, unable to hold it in anymore, pulls him in for a kiss on the cheek. He’s only known him for three weeks, and the boy has already uncovered more safe buttons to push to get an upper hand than anyone did _ever_ . Well, except his _mom_ , that is. So far he’s found three things that deflate his father on the spot: calling him ‘dad’, hugging him, and bringing up Adele (especially when Johnny couples it with ‘grandma’).

Max’s next move creates a ‘check’ situation, and the two Quinns are saved by the bell when Julia walks in to pick up Johnny. She looks at her son, who’s far from being ready to leave, despite her telling him exactly what time she’d be coming to get him more than once. His boots are still off, he hasn’t changed into his new set of clothes, and, what’s worse, but not unusual anymore, he doesn’t jump up and leap into her arms the moment he sees her. Instead he wiggles deeper into his father’s embrace and impatiently waves her to come closer.

Shaking her head at the both of them, she crosses the room, dropping a kiss into her son’s hair. She unceremoniously releases Quinn’s arms from around him and nudges Johnny to get off of his father’s knee, handing him the new clothes and pointing to the bathroom.

“Get dressed. _Now_. Three minutes or I’m leaving without you.”

Johnny obliges, but not before giving her a smirk of a stare. “Dad’s gonna have a _long talk_ with you. About me swearing and you saying it’s ok.”

“ _Go_ .” She rolls her eyes, pushing him towards the bathroom. “Your _dad_ is a _very_ scary man. And has the cleanest mouth _I’ve_ ever seen.”

Giggling happily with himself, Johnny runs off.

Quinn grins at Julia, watching as her clearly discontented expression melts into an amused smile.

“The police…” he starts, gets a playful smack at the back of his head, and laughs.

She hasn’t changed much in all those years. She’d always been obsessed with things being done on time, hated people being late. She can be tough and soft, he knows. But seeing the maternal side of her, finding that she’s turned out exactly like he always pictured her being with their children, adds a new level of both sadness and adoration to what he’s feeling about her today.

The chess-clock buzzes, and Max wins. They shake hands. Quinn gets up and gives Julia a hug. It’s a brief one. But he enjoys the feeling of her leaning into his arms, the sensation of her head coming to rest right under his chin, even if it is for a very short time. But mostly, it’s the melting, like all those years ago- something inside of him changes, thaws, becomes calmer every time she holds him.

As Johnny comes out of the bathroom, ready to leave, the door to the room opens. A man peeks in whom Quinn vaguely recognizes as the neurosurgeon who operated on him and has been visiting randomly ever since.

“Bad time to visit my favourite soldier?” he inquires with a smile, seeing way too many people in the room.

“No, that’s fine, come on in,” Quinn waves him in. “They’re all leaving and I have about an hour to be bored out of my mind before my next PT session.”

Three more hugs and pecks on a cheek, and the room is free from visitors. Dr Emory takes the chair that Max had occupied just a minute ago. With a smirk of admiration he watches as his patient, whom he’d barely given any chance of survival, puts away the chess pieces, folds the board, rearranges the hospital furniture, and pulls a chair for himself.

“Not bad,” he admits, nodding with approval. “Last time I saw you… was it three weeks ago? Four? You needed help getting out of bed. I’ve had a look at your file, your last EMG results are quite impressive. So is your latest Echo. The cardiomyopathy is almost gone. I’m betting on two more weeks before we kick your ass back to the front lines, good as new.”

Quinn nods absentmindedly, deep in thought. The front line is definitely not happening. He’d already been offered other options in the agency, attractive positions all over the world, to give time for his face, broadcasted _everywhere_ , to change or fade into the background. Maybe then he can get back into the covert operations. But it’s not _just_ that.

“My eyesight,” he says, pointing to a pair of reading glasses on his night stand. “It’s getting worse by the week. They still don’t know what to make of it. So… no _front lines_ for a half blind sniper. _That_ … and the fact that my fucking face is all over the social media.”

Emory waves him off dismissively. “I’ve seen snipers with contact lenses. And your eyesight is probably the result of cortical hypoxia. Could be reversible, like everything else. And, worse case scenario… desk job for a while.”

“That’s what they keep telling me,” Quinn grumbles, remembering his last conversation with Saul Berenson.

“Hey, it could’ve been _much_ worse, and I think you know it.”

“Yeah.”

“Sometimes taking a break is not a bad thing. Especially at your age. You’re what? Forty?”

Quinn nods. “Almost.”

“Take it. The desk job. That is, if you still want to remain with the Agency. You’ve been to hell and back. I’d say you’ve done enough.”

It’s a decision that will need to be made, Quinn knows. He’s been back and forth about wanting out for so many years, both for real and just to satisfy that constant itch. But, somehow, now, when it’s actually a possibility, and, above all, a situation of little choice on his behalf, all he can think about is wanting back in.

Emory’s voice jolts him back into the conversation. “Hey, can I ask you a question?” He nods. “I’ve been wondering, ever since that day. Did you know? About the attack? Where it was going to be?”

Quinn seems confused. “You mean the attack here? In Berlin?”

“Yeah. I keep thinking… if they _did_ wake you up… did you even have the information they needed?”

“Wake me up?” Quinn seems even more lost now.

“When you first came in... seeing how you were with the cell, the video... the thought was you might have had known about their plans, the possible location. That’s why they wanted us to wake you up from a coma.”

“They?” It’s the wrong question, Quinn knows, but his brain seems to be working more slowly than usual, his thought pattern too erratic.

“Oh, you didn’t know…”

Quinn shakes his head, not taking his eyes from Emory’s face. “I had no idea. About where the attack was going to be,” he says in the end, answering the initial question.

“So I guess she was right.” Seeing the confusion on Quinn’s face, he points to the door. “That woman who was just here? She was the one who stopped them. Well, _us_ . I tried myself, I explained the risks to them, went to the hospital board, contacted the ethics committee. But in the end, with an attack pending, and Germany being a NATO member... Between the Patriot Act and the Geneva convention… I had a direct order. There was little _I_ could do.”

“The risks?” Quinn’s trying to regroup, gather his thoughts, but along with his feelings, they are all over the place. What he really wants to ask is: _‘With all that, you couldn’t stop them, but Jules, a CIVILIAN, did? How?? How in the face of an imminent attack, did Julia manage to stop Saul from attempting to gather intel that could potentially save hundreds if not thousands of lives???’_

He asks to be excused, telling Emory that he’s not feeling well. And it seems true, seeing how his face has gone pale and beads of cold sweat cover his forehead. Emory offers to call one of the nurses, but Quinn shakes his head, telling him that it happens, just one of the flashbacks. And it’s true, this is what those can feel and look like. But what he’s just heard has him terrified in a very real way that no flashback ever could.

Before Emory leaves, Quinn asks him some more questions, such as who was there, did he know their names, and, finally, what Julia said or did to make them stop the procedure. Emory’s memory of that day is rather vivid. He describes Saul and Carrie. Quinn nods - based on the little he knows, it makes sense. As for ‘how’ she convinced them, Emory says “She made threats.” Despite the chaotic haze of Quinn’s thought pattern, that’s the only conclusion he’d come to himself. There had to be threats, some kind of blackmail involved. The doctor says she was vague, never mentioning any specific details, but whatever she said seemed to strike a nerve. She threatened to go to the press, mail some stuff to WikiLeaks.

After Emory leaves, Quinn’s knees give out. His hands are shaking as he grabs his phone and dials. He calls Julia, again and again. All his calls go to voicemail. Fucking movie theatres. He tries Max twice. Same shit. Then Johnny. Nothing.

He opens Telegram and messages Julia. The first thing he types is that he’s ok. Because he realises that twelve missed calls from him would freak her out. Then he tells her they need to talk and asks her to come to the hospital as soon as she reads this. He also asks her to come alone, without Johnny or Max.

He opens the dialer again. Carrie. He should call Carrie. She was there, she would know what threats Julia had made, how bad they were. His blood gets even colder - to stop a man like Saul in the face of an imminent attack, they would have to be _very bad_. He starts to to dial, but his fingers seem to have a mind of their own, working slower than usual, each number coming after an even longer delay than the previous one. In the end, when her name is highlighted above the dial pad, and all he needs is to press the dial button, he can’t bring himself to. He knows how this will go. Carrie was there. Before they know it, the conversation will shift to how they needed to wake him up and she didn’t want them to, but they had no choice. He’s too overwhelmed, he doesn’t have it in him right now to handle Carrie’s guilt driving her into full defensive mode over something that he doesn’t even care about. He’s afraid he’ll end up snapping at her. And it’ll end the way it always does - taking their already strained relationship another three steps backwards.

He long-presses delete until the search window is cleared, then stares at the dial pad. Who else would know what she said? Or maybe that’s not the question at all. Because what’s really important is, who would give Julia the information sensitive enough to make Saul back off?

He can think of two people. In fact, the moment he has the list narrowed, he’s pretty sure he knows how it went down. Julia came to Berlin thinking he was dead. And yet she ended up in this hospital. Someone brought her here. He’s fairly sure Julia knows no one in his world. Except the one person whose contact information he had given to Andrew Stevenson almost eight years ago.

Astrid doesn’t answer. Quinn throws the phone on the bed and walks over to the hospital closet. He goes through his clothes, looking for something he can wear outside, other than pajamas and tricot home attire, that is. That’s when his phone rings.

“Peter, are you ok? Did something happen? I was in a briefing.”

He gets straight to the point. “Did you put Julia in contact with Dar?”

Astrid knows better than to play stupid. “Yes.”

Her honesty seems to calm him down a little. “Do you know what movie theatre Jules, Max and Johnny went to? Can you find them?”

“Why? Did something happen? Peter, what’s wrong?”

“Can you?”

“Probably. I can go there now. Should I bring backup?” When he doesn’t answer, she starts to feel waves of panic wash over her. “Peter?”

He sits down on his hospital bed and takes a deep breath. He tells himself that he’s being irrational. It’s been eight weeks, and nothing has happened. No one has made any threats, not as far as _he_ knows, anyway. He realises he’s too blindsided to be thinking straight. What he needs are answers, not an extraction plan.

“Astrid, can you come over to the hospital?”

“After I find them or…”

“Now. Can you come now?”

 

Astrid finds him pacing. The moment she enters, his eyes burrow into hers. She tries to assess his state of mind. She can’t tell if he’s angry or panicked, or just confused. He looks pale and disoriented.

“You should have told me. _Somebody_ should have said _something_ ,” he fires.

Astrid closes the door behind her and drops her purse on the little table, coming closer.

“You’re right,” she says finally. “And I’m sorry I didn’t.” She takes one of the chairs and watches him reluctantly sit down as well. “What do you want to know?”

Quinn stares at her long and hard, but eventually nods, acknowledging her candor. She’s the closest thing he has to a friend, the only one who actually knows him, at least _parts_ of him. She’s always been there for him when he needed her.

She gets right to the point, not mentioning the decision about waking him up, whether she thought it was right or wrong. She knows that’s not what has him so wired. She tells him everything she knows about what happened before Julia walked into this hospital and stopped them, that she was the one who’d taken Julia to the meeting point Dar had chosen before driving her back here. She doesn’t know _what_ Julia had on the agency, or on Saul. But she knows it was Dar who’d given her the information.

“Jesus, Astrid, she’s a _civilian_!”

“So?” Astrid arches an eyebrow.

“ _So?_ I need to spell it out to you? You’ve put a civilian in contact with a CIA official in order to obtain information to blackmail _another_ CIA official!”

Astrid gets it now. He has a point, but she knows he has it all mixed up. “Peter, first of all, I had no idea why Julia wanted to see him. She just…”

He stops her right there. “For fuck’s sake, Astrid! _Julia_ wanted to see him? Just like that? All of a sudden she had an epiphany that Dar Adal would be able to provide her with blackmail material on Saul to interfere with his plans? You had _no idea_?”

“That’s _right_. I picked her up at the airport and drove her to the hospital. She was out in less then five minutes and asked if Dar Adal was in Berlin. Which he was. She asked if I could contact him, which I did.”

Quinn’s expression is a volatile mix of anger and mistrust again. “She asked for Dar Adal… the head of the Special Ops Group... _Jules_ did?” His tone is mocking and sarcastic.

“She _did_ . By _name_ ,” Astrid replies calmly. “And when I called him, and gave him _her_ name, he didn’t sound surprised. Which made sense to me, seeing how you’d _told_ me that he was keeping an eye on her and Johnny, a long time ago, remember? Wasn’t that a part of your _deal_ with him, when you decided to stay right after Johnny was born?”

He stands up and starts pacing again. Then stops and looks down at Astrid. “It _was_ . But Jules _never_ knew about it. She’s never met him, never even heard his name.”

Astrid winces, hating to break it to him. “You sure about that, Peter? Because she seemed to have known him rather well. And not only by name. I took her to the park where he’d said he would meet with her and stayed in the car with Johnny. She saw him on the bench and walked right _towards_ him. _Believe_ me, she _knew_ him.”

Quinn’s memories of those days are foggy. He remembers coming back home from what was supposed to be his last mission. Stevenson had been waiting for him in the car next to their apartment building, had told him what had happened to Julia, brought him to the hospital. He remembers going to see Dar later that night. And he remembers Dar looking concerned, acting compassionately, telling him that he’d had his suspicions, which was why he stopped the investigation into Julia’s attack. He’d said he had no idea if it was the agency or someone related to one of Quinn’s previous operations. But he promised to find out more and keep him in the loop. He reminded Quinn that he’d tried to warn him. There had been sensitive missions, involving ongoing operations, information that had to be protected at all costs. It was the worst time to quit. He said that he was sorry, that there was nothing he could do, except promise to keep an eye on Julia and the baby, make sure they’re safe in case anyone tries something again. He told him again that it didn’t have to be for good, that sooner or later it would be safer. But Quinn knew. By the time what he knows becomes irrelevant to national security, if it _ever_ does, there will be something else. Because if he stays, he’ll be going on more missions, getting involved in new operations. It will never end.

He’d known it was over long before he left Julia’s ICU room and went to see Dar. And he knew that he’d never told Julia his boss’s name, and that she’d never met him.

Catching Astrid’s concerned eyes on him, he realises he hasn’t spoken in a long time.

“Peter, you weren’t _there_ . For _eight and a half years_ ,” Astrid says in a calm rational voice, as if reading his thoughts. “Julia could have met him after you two split.” She’s trying to see why he still looks unconvinced. “What’s bothering you about it? What else do you want to know? I mean, it’s done. And, considering the alternative…”

“It’s not about the alternative, Astrid,” he grumbles, looking even more irritated.

“Then what? What _is_ it about?”

“This is _exactly_ what I never wanted for her, for _them_ . This life of mine, this _shithole_ , it almost killed them both. I walked away so they could have a life away from it. And now they’re in the middle of it, _again_. And for what?” His tone gets harder as he speaks the last words.

Astrid gives him an incredulous stare, raising both eyebrows. “For _what_ ? As in.. your life isn’t reason _enough_ ? Because you’re allowed to risk it for anyone you see fit, but, _hey_ , God forbid anyone tries to do something for you?” She gestures at his face, his blank, almost hollow expression, that she knows all too well - the full “Peter Quinn emergency emotional lockdown”. “Why do you always have to be this hard on yourself?”

He sits back down, forcing himself to remain still, despite the restlessness that’s tearing him apart, driving him to act, figure it out, do something to fix this mess. For a moment he looks powerless, almost subdued, desperate.

“Because it’s on me, Astrid,” he grumbles finally, exasperated. “Julia’s done a dumb and reckless thing, because _I’ve_ done a dumb and reckless thing, made a tactical mistake, got myself into this shit. I fucked it up. And if something happens to her, to _any_ of them…” A dark shadow runs over his face.

“Yeah, you did. Fuck it up, I mean. You do this long enough, crap like that is bound to happen. But you didn’t force Julia to jump on a plane and come here. It was her choice. _Everything_ she did. You’d probably do the same… and _more,_ for _any_ of us. So, give it a rest already. For once, someone stood up for _you_ \- boo-hoo. Deal with it. People love you. You’re not the only one allowed to take risks for those you care about.”

Quinn can’t help a faint, but sincere smile at the ‘boo-hoo’. His eyes soften, resting on Astrid’s face. Then the momentary joy fades again.

“I never really stayed away, you know, never completely let go,” he says finally, looking away, wistful and sad both. “If I had, she wouldn’t have jumped on a plane, she would have a life by now, her _own_ life. But I kept…” he exhales loudly, shaking his head. “I wrote, asked for pictures of Johnny. I even came to see her once, about three years ago. She was married. She got divorced three months later. I just keep fucking it up, Astrid.”

Astrid actually laughs at that, ignoring his irritated stare as she does. “Wow. That’s a new record even for you. People get divorced, Peter. For many reasons that, believe it or not, might _not_ be about _you_ . My _God_ you’re an idiot. You asked for pictures of your son. You’ve given up your _life_ for him. And Julia would have jumped on a plane even if she were still married. Because unlike _some_ people…”

Quinn gives her a warning look. “ _Don’t_ …” he stops her, like he usually does when she goes there.

Astrid scoffs, but obliges. “Well, you _know_ what I think.”

He rolls his eyes. “I do. Just… not _now_ , ok?” She dislikes Carrie, she adores Julia, she thinks he’s an idiot. That sums it up pretty well. He usually gives her some leeway to ramble about his fucked-up personal life preferences before telling her to shove her opinions where they belong. Luckily, Astrid is pushy, but not very stubborn. She keeps coming back to the topic, at the most inappropriate moments usually, but she lets it go when he lashes out.

“Fine,” Astrid gnarls, getting back to what’s important. “So, what do you wanna do about it? Probably not much you can find out from here. I _might_ be able to try and… Although, I wouldn’t even know where to start. Saul and I aren’t exactly ‘drinking buddies’. Your _girlfriend_ might be able to find out more. Did you call _her_?”

Completely ignoring her stinging remark, he shakes his head. “No.” He’s even more happy now that he hadn’t. With dread, he realises there’s only one person who can really give him some straight answers. And by _straight answers_ , he means whatever he can manage to pull out of that man, which depends on just how sensitive the information is and whether or not his disclosing it could actually serve his own agenda. “Is Dar still in Berlin?”

 

Astrid starts to leave but hesitates and turns around as she approaches the doorway. She seems apprehensive, troubled.

“There’s something else…” Quinn just gives her a questioning stare, and she shakes her head, trying to figure out a way to put it. “It’s just…” She sighs. “The way Julia asked to talk Dar, how she talked about him… it’s like she _knew_ he was going to help her. But Dar… I mean, you know him better than I do...” She waits for him to nod. “He’s not a very helpful type, is he? I mean, not without his own reasons. And I’m not saying saving your life wouldn't be a reason on its own, just…” She shivers at the implications. “It seems like Julia didn’t _just_ know him. I think she _had_ something on him. Something that would _make_ him cooperate, you know?”

The blood in Quinn’s veins turns cold. He _does_ know Dar. As well as anyone can really know that man. No, he’s not an exceptionally benevolent type. And yes, he’s always claimed to care about him. But Dar doesn’t scare easily. He’s not the kind of person you threaten or blackmail, not without repercussions, not without him having an alternate play in place. What the _fuck_ has Julia gotten herself into?

 

__________________________

He leaves another message for Julia, telling her what he can without lying to her. He says he was just having a panic attack when he tried to reach them, so there’s no need for her to come over. He knew it wouldn’t stop her and, sure enough, about an hour later she calls from a cab on her way over, frantic and worried about him. It takes a lot to convince her to turn around and go to Astrid’s to be with Johnny. In the end he pulls it off, making it perhaps the first time he’s managed to change her mind _ever_.

Carrie calls twice but he lets it go to voicemail, eventually messaging that he’ll call as soon as he can, without elaborating. The good thing about Carrie is that when she doesn’t really need something, she’s capable of letting it go. Which she does, telling him to take his time. Oh, he plans to.

He’d told Dar to meet him on the eleventh floor. The truth is, there _isn’t_ an eleventh floor to this hospital. It’s a construction site, basically an initial cement structure, destined to become the new maternity wing. It can only be accessed by one service elevator. Quinn had to steal the keycard from the maintenance manager to get up there. He’s not worried about Dar finding his way - if history is any indication, he will.

He arrives with a newfound sense of calm and contentment. He gets there early to scope the place out, and he’s struck right away by just how empty the place is. It’s the perfect strategic spot: great vantage point, holes in the walls instead of windows, plenty of construction materials to improvise a rifle stand of any height he needs, good cover, single but solid escape route - it’s too good to be true. He spots a place in the corner where he could unfold a sleeping bag. It makes him wistful, almost sad. It feels like home. And suddenly, the sense of calm and contentment is replaced with a sense of dread.

“You sure know how to pick’em, Peter,” a voice from behind his back says.

Quinn tenses, but doesn’t turn around. Based on the sound of Dar’s approaching footsteps, he can approximate his exact location within a range of three feet. He wonders if by ‘them’ Dar means the location he’d chosen or if it is something else entirely. He lets it go; with Dar, it’s probably both.

“Relax. For Christ’s sake, I’m just saying hello.” He eyes Quinn from head to toe and manages a barely noticeable nod of approval. “You’re coming along well. At this rate, you’ll be back to scalp-hunting in no time.”

“Nope. I’m done with that, Dar.”

“Says who? Saul Berenson? The director? I’ll take you back, Peter, with glasses, contact lenses, on crutches, in a wheelchair… You’ll still top the best of them.”

Quinn would ask how he knew about him needing glasses, but it’s a futile exercise. Dar is everywhere, all the time. He’s not just the shadow of his life, he is the darkness around him. The momentary feeling of pride that washes over him when Dar expresses such high regard for his skills is swiftly replaced with the sensation of nausea and chills running down his spine. Quinn swallows: he knows the routine, he knows himself around Dar. It’s not being able to escape it, time after time, that aggravates him.

Dar looks at him long and hard, then spreads his arms, motioning around him. “Is this really why you brought me here? To whine about not being fit for duty anymore? Because I dropped everything and went through a lot of trouble to get here as soon as you called.”

He steps closer and feels the anger rising inside of him to a whole new level.

“Eight and a half years ago you _promised_ me… you _swore_ you’d protect Julia and my son if I stayed. You fucking looked me in the eye and you _swore_ you’d keep them safe.”

“And I _did_ , didn’t I,” Dar responds, more a statement of fact than a request for affirmation.

Quinn’s eyebrows rise as his jaw drops and his eyes widen. “Are you shitting me? Are you fucking shitting me???” His voice, hard and sharp, but controlled, resonates against the concrete walls.

Dar’s voice remains calm. “I’ve kept an eye on them. No harm has _ever_ come to them, not from the agency and not from anywhere else. And it wasn’t always easy. But I _did_ promise and I _did_ keep my word.” His eyes soften, resting on Quinn’s face, and it brings on another wave of unease. “I care about you. I trained you, _invested_ in you. Do you really think I’d _ever_ let anything happen to either of them? You’re my guy, Peter.”

“No, you’re wrong, Dar. I’m not your fucking guy. Not anymore.”

“Okay, fine. You’re _not_ my guy, Peter. You’re your own person. You don’t need _me_ , or the _group_ , or the agency, you don’t need _anyone_. You’ve clearly proven that. So how is it that you got into this mess, Peter? How did you end up nearly getting yourself killed by a bunch of amateur ISIS rejects?”

It stings. Not just because it’s coming from Dar, which for some reason makes it matter all the more, but because it’s true. He fucked up, big time. He changes the subject. “What really happened? In the hospital?”

“What do you mean?”

“The doctors said they wanted to wake me up. To see what I knew about the cell.”

He knows there’s no point in stalling. “Yes. Saul and Carrie were prepared to risk your life for information you might not even have. So tell me, Peter. Did you?”

“Have the information? No.”

“So they made the right decision. I told them it wasn’t a risk worth taking. But I guess you were a sacrifice they were willing to make. They’ve never really seen your value, those two. Not like I have.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me, Dar. For once. Tell me what really happened.”

“I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t there.”

“But you know. They didn’t change their mind about waking me up. You stopped them.”

“I didn’t do it alone. Your old friend Julia was a big help.”

“So I heard. Julia, a _civilian_ , managed to keep the CIA from waking up an operative to stop a terrorist attack. How does that even happen?”

“Peter, why are you asking me if you already seem to know the answer?”

“Because I want you to tell me yourself.”

“Fine. It was her idea. She begged me for information to blackmail Saul. I didn’t disagree with her. So I gave her what she asked for.”

“You didn’t help her; you _used_ her.”

“She came to _me_ , Peter. How is that using her?”

“You wanted to stop them, why didn’t you do it yourself? You had no right risking her life like that, _anyone’s_ life.”

“I did what I had to. Same as I did eight and a half years ago, when I came to talk to her. I was trying to save your life. There was a fucking order for your elimination. And I explained it to Julia. But you _are_ two of a kind, aren’t you? Because instead of listening she pulled her service weapon on me and basically threw me down the stairs…”

Dar keeps talking, but nothing registers anymore. It’s as if the volume of every sound in the world has been muted. His mind stops racing, and for a while it all becomes very still. Then, with a loud click, it comes together.

Caught up in telling his story, Dar is too late to notice the change in Quinn’s eyes as they widen, fill with grief, then pain, then despair, and, finally, rage. His pupils blow all the way, fueled by the sudden surge of adrenaline.

“You came to see her,” he mutters, not really talking to Dar anymore, but giving voice to the many realisations that are hitting him at once.

The attack on Julia. It was one week into that mission. It was meant to get to him. But not like they’d thought. He’d thought it was an attempt to assassinate him. But it was all a ruse, an act meant to show him there’s no way out. And it wasn’t orchestrated by an enemy. It was Dar.

In a flash it all merges in his head: almost losing Julia and Johnny eight and a half years ago, because of him, of what his life had brought on them, and them being in danger now, for the same reason. His jaw clenches so hard that he can feel the metallic taste of blood flooding his mouth. All he can see are flashes - white and burning hatred, for Dar and himself both; then grey, almost black, throwing him into a bottomless pit of despair. Layers shed off, erasing the last eight and a half years from existence, and all he’s left with is the memory of how much he loved them, how he never wanted anything more than he wanted to have that life. But it was never up to him, was it? None of it.

A vision goes through his head of a dog, its neck in a collar, a man behind it holding the end of the leash. The dog walks in front; it thinks it’s the one in charge, taking the lead, making the choices. But really it’s the guy behind him, subtly pointing him in the direction he wants him to go. Quinn realizes this was the real truth all along. He thought he was making the decisions in his life, but really he was just a dog in a collar, his fate determined by the one in control, who had that control all along.

When Dar finally sees it, realises he’s said too much, he knows it’s too late. He takes a step back as his eyes flash to the side, contemplating possible escape routes. Quinn’s hand grabs his shirt and twists a fistful of it next to his throat. His stare is ice cold, colorless, blank. He closes the gap between them, holding Dar’s eyes, almost smiling when he finally sees what he’s looking for, what he realizes he’s been waiting to see all these years - fear, raw and primal, undisguised.

Ironically, Dar has a dog metaphor of his own. He’s always known that when you spend your life raising fight dogs, you risk winding up with one of them sinking their teeth into your throat if you drop your guard. But that’s not it. The thing is, this one is not a dog, never has been. He might have had found him as a puppy, but he always knew that Peter Quinn was a whole different kind of animal. And now, for the first time ever, he _knows_ this is it, staring helplessly into the pale blue eyes of a grown wolf.

Quinn takes another step, shoving Dar backwards, once, twice, all the way to the edge of the concrete barrier that becomes the only thing keeping them both from falling below. _Both_ . Because he’ll go down with him if necessary. And maybe it is. Dar might have been the ruling force of his life, but _he let him_ . He never had it in him to roll out from under this man’s influence, and as a result he’s brought nothing but grief and misery to those he loved. It’s not just Dar’s price to pay. It’s _both_ of theirs. He pictures Dar’s body shattering into a thousand pieces, his insides exposed. Broken, weak, powerless. And his own body there beside him.

One more step and they are there. Dar’s staring deep into his eyes. Boring into his soul, seeing right into him, even now. And for the first time Quinn doesn’t want him to stop - he _wants_ him to look, to _see_ . _Once a scalp-hunter always a scalp hunter. Do you see me, you motherfucker? Do you see the killer you’ve made? How proud are you of me now?_ He pushes one more time, feeling the cold breeze on his face, seeing the world below, seeing the end of it all, seeing his freedom.

He stops. _The killer_. The last piece of puzzle finally falls into place. He’s a killer. That’s what Julia had on Dar all these years. That’s why he was so forthcoming. She never told him about Dar’s visit. Because she knew. She knew he would do exactly what he’s doing right now. She knew he would figure it out and kill him. And so did Dar.

Something inside of him snaps so hard that the pain is almost physical. It hurts more than anything he’s ever felt, more than being shot, stabbed or even gassed. Julia’s love used to be his sanctuary, the one place in the world where he could forget about who he was and what he did. But _she_ never forgot. She used it to ensure her safety, and _his_ safety as well. Even to her, the only person who was ever able to make him feel that he could be more, that killing was never _all_ he could be - he _is_ a killer. And he’s about to prove it. Again.

 _It’ll never end_ , he remembers himself thinking, when he left Dar’s home eight and a half years ago.

 _But it has to. Now. It ends now. You don’t stop being a killer because someone loves you enough to make you forget who and what you are. You stop when you stop killing. You kill Dar and you’ll prove him right, again. You let him and what he’d done_ _to you_ _control your life once more. He becomes yet another skeleton in the graveyard of your life._

Quinn takes a step back, but he doesn’t let go. Faster than Dar can realise what’s happening, Quinn’s arm flings around his neck and the palm of his other hand smashes into the side of his head. For a moment Dar wonders if he’s changed his mind and is going to strangle him in a death grip instead, but then he feels his fingers dig deep into the spot in the triangle between his trapezius and carotid artery. The pain is so deep, paralyzing, and sharp that he wails, feeling his eyes bulging, his head almost exploding.

“Does this hurt?” Quinn’s voice, calm and expressionless, slashes through the throbbing fire of Dar’s pain like a sharp stick of ice. His fingers press harder and Dar screams again until he’s out of breath. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Quinn forces Dar’s head towards him, until his hazy and disoriented stare is fixed on his face. “You’re not able to talk right now... but then again, you probably _know that_. So just nod if you can understand what I’m saying.”

Dar can’t nod, he can barely breathe. But he manages to blink.

“Works too,” Quinn says, digging just a little deeper. Dar’s not a young man, and he knows there’s a limit to how much pain a person can take. He needs him conscious. “I’m going to walk out of here now. And you’re going to let me. Actually, I don’t give a shit if you let me. I’m out. For good. You, the group, the agency - all of it. And you’ll make it happen. I don’t care how, I don’t care what you do, who you kill - you make it happen. We ok so far?”

Dar blinks again, groaning, not even able to scream anymore. He blinks again and again, his eyes getting bloodshot, bulging even wider.

“Ok, so that’s one down. One to go. The information you’ve given to Julia, you take care of it. And I want to be _really_ clear on that. Because this is actually _very_ important. Something happens to her, my son, and I mean _anything_ … you better hope they don’t get into an accident, fall down or scratch their knee… Because, Dar... _anything_ happens to them and I’m coming for you. And when I do - I’ll make it last. And you’ll beg for me to kill you. And I _promise_ you, I _swear on my son’s life_ , I _will_ make you regret I didn’t killed you today.”

He waits for Dar to blink again then releases his grip around his neck in one swift motion, watching him slump to the ground at his feet, stay there for a short while, then slowly get up, and, without looking at him, walk away.

His eyes follow as Dar struts across the concrete floor, stepping into the elevator. Still distinguished, still controlled, but elderly now, slightly hunched over, one leg oh so subtly dragging behind the other. The years are catching up with him. He must be over 70 now. It’s laughable, really. He turns to face Quinn one last time.

“You’ll always be my guy, Peter,” he says with just a hint of a sad smile.

Quinn chuckles, shaking his head, then levels his eyes with Dar’s, making sure he can once more see into him, as he speaks, calm, content, more at peace than he’s ever been in his life.

“No, I won’t. I’ll walk out of here, build a life for myself and never so much as think of you again,” he quips. Then adds, “But _you…_ You’ll always be a dirty old man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gnomecat and Violiko, it's an honor to share this journey with you both. On a side note, Violiko, where's that new phone? I'll end up sending you one. Missing you!


	11. Five Days of 'No'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _**When you fall head over heels for someone, you’re not falling in love with who they are as a person; you’re falling in love with your idea of love.  
>  —Elisabeth Rohm** _

**Late August 2003, Day 0, Saturday Night 04:07**

He’s  awakened by a screeching sound that resonates in his throbbing head, causing a discomfort that he’s all too familiar with. Ok, maybe discomfort is not the best word for it. Pain, sharp, shooting pain, exacerbated by the commotion around him and turning the sound of hushed voices into what feels like bullets piercing his brain. 

Someone touches his shoulder. Fully intending to continue sleeping, he tries to flip to his front. His face hits something wooden, between the ridges. He also can’t flip his legs, as they are not in a vertical position, but hanging to the ground. Without opening his eyes he re-evaluates his posture: he seems to be slumped on his side, his back against a hard surface, his legs still in a sitting position. Ok, so he can’t turn around. Fine. He can keep sleeping, though.

Screeching metal again, more voices, static of a radio communication device, more voices. Slowly, he recalls the events supposedly leading to him being here. Which seems kind of futile, considering the fact that he has no idea  _ where here is _ . 

Aakkar, Lebanon. The first thing he remembers. Short mission, three targets. 

Another metallic sound, he recognizes it now - bars. He’s in a holding cell. Were they taken prisoners? Mmm no. They made it back. All four of them. Sam had to go, he had a date. Lucky bastard, he  _ always _ has a date. Rob, Nicky and himself… Oh yeah. Philly. Bar. Whiskey. More whiskey. Someone taking the bar st ool occupied by Rob’s duffel bag . Jesus-fucking-Christ, did they take on seven guys in a bar over a fucking bar stool??? The police show ing u p, tall skinny man and a short dark haired woman. He feels his abdomen tensing. She fucking  _ zapped  _ him,  _ in the gut _ . 

“On your feet.” His eyes open. “Yes,  _ you _ . Get up. You’re being released.”

He sits up too fast.  _ Motherfucker _ . His head is splitting. Everything is foggy. Slowly, his eyes get more focused. The man standing behind the bars doesn’t look happy. He  _ never  _ looks happy. Rob and Nick are up as well. They both look like shit. He can only imagine what  _ he _ looks like. Who fucking cares? He’s in a holding cell.

“For fuck’s sake, John, I haven’t got all night. Get your sorry ass off that bench and let’s go.” Yep. Dar sounds pissed, more so than usual.

John gets up, feeling himself sore all over, and stumbles towards the door. Rob slams a palm on his shoulder, grumbling something along the lines of “...not so pretty anymore,  _ pretty boy _ …”. John jerks his hand off, “Fuck  _ you _ , asshole.”

Dar leads them out through a long narrow corridor. The fluorescent lights are flickering and the headache gets worse. They are in a large room now, full of desks, most of which are empty. The lights are dimmer here. They are almost at the door, through which they can see a black SUV parked right in front of the main entrance to the precinct. Dar, the drama queen. 

John stops. Dar shoots an irritated glance in his direction and impatiently waves him to keep walking.

“I’ll be right there.” Disregarding Dar’s clearly discontented demeanor, John scopes the room. 

There’s a woman: probably early sixties, a little chubby, blond curls, muddy light brown eyes. He remembers her. She looks like a secretary or something. Ignoring Dar’s warnings, John turns around and heads directly towards her desk. She looks up and stops typing.

“You again.” She doesn’t seem pissed, mostly amused. 

Did they talk before? No fucking idea. He looks at the nameplate on her desk.

“Lucy, right? Hey, Lucy, was there a girl here before?”

He needs the name. All he remembers is the face. The eyes. The hair. He can’t get it out of his head. The smile. Fuck, that  _ smile _ . He needs her name. Dar is hissing at him to get his ass  into the car this very moment. He keeps looking at Lucy.

“A  _ girl _ ?” Lucy shakes her head and goes back to typing. “Damn drunks…” she mumbles.

“Yeah, a girl. There was a girl here before. What’s her name?”

Lucy looks up again. “Honey, look around. It’s a  _ police  _ station. There are boys, girls, in-betweens…  _ aaannnything  _ you want. There…” she points to a group of ‘working girls’ chattering in the corner and waiting to be processed, “...pick one. And get lost.”

One of the girls waves at him with an inviting smile. Oh man. He thinks he smiles back. Can’t be sure. Focus,  _ focus _ . He turns his attention back to Lucy. He needs to be more clear. 

“Mmm no. A girl who  _ works  _ here. About… this high…” He lifts a hand to his shoulder. “... dark eyes, dark hair, uniform. The one who brought me in.”

“What… Jules?”

He feels a dumb grin spreading all over his face. “Jules…” Why does it sound familiar? Never-fucking-mind. “ _ Jules _ have a last name?”

Lucy rechecks his file. He has the right to know the name of his arresting officer. “You were brought in by officers David Fletcher and Julia Diaz, Mr… _ Smith _ . Seriously?  _ John Smith _ ?”

Yeah, he wasn’t very creative with a cover ID, was he? Oh, screw it. Dar will sort it out. What he does next leaves Lucy at a loss of words - he bends over her desk and gives her a peck on a cheek.

“Thanks, Lucy. You’re a saint.”

A hand grabs his shirt collar from behind, yanks him back and literally throws him towards the main entrance. “Get your wasted ass into that car or I swear to God…”

 

**Day 0, Sunday afternoon, 16:15**

John wakes up. Immediately, he wishes he hadn’t. Barely keeping his eyes open, he drags himself to the bathroom, throws up, and steps into the shower. Cold water helps. With nothing but a towel around his hips, he stumbles into the kitchen and opens the fridge. 

Beer. Aspirin. More Beer. Another cold shower. Ok, he’s good as new.

His phone is where he dropped it - on the floor by the door. There’s a yell ow piece of note paper stuck to it, which has the name ‘Julia Diaz’ scribbled across it.  _ Good thinking gluing it to the phone, pretty boy, good thinking. _

One problem. No phone number. Not a problem. He calls Dar.

“You want me to…  _ what? _ ”

He explains it again. Dar hangs up. He calls again. He’ll just keep calling. 

Dar knows it. The truth is, this is not the most bizarre thing he has ever been asked to do. Hell, it’s not even in the top ten. Being a babysitter is part of the job description. Mental note - refer to last night. Those guys,  _ his _ guys, are the nameless and faceless last line of defense this country has against its many enemies. Their existence is fleeting. Once they are gone, there’s rarely a memory of them. Most of them don’t have families. The ones who do, rarely make it past a year or two.They are far from being spoiled. They are soldiers. The time they have in the real world is usually spent sleeping off missions, boozing and fucking around. Who’s he to say no to one of his boys looking for a fling?

After the third call he barks that he’ll get back to John in fifteen minutes. He does. He has a phone number and an address. 

John can’t find a pen. It’s a good thing he can memorize details on the fly. He hangs up without so much as a thank you and gets dressed. He considers calling first. Then re-considers. First thing first - survey. Then - surveillance. Then… he’ll see. He grabs his car keys and drives to her place.

By the evening he knows she rents an apartment with two roomates, n either of who m is on the force. One’s a student at Penn. Another - a waitress. They seem friendly enough, but not really friends. She’s been on night shifts for a month. She starts on day shifts tomorrow. She’s twenty four years old, never went to college, graduated from the police academy about three years ago, been working car patrol ever since. She’s not a girly type, nor does she seem to have girl-friends. 

She goes out after dark and meets her partner, David Fletcher, whom she keeps calling Dave, and another guy, called Shorty, in a bar. John sizes both men up - he can take them. He can take a squadron of their kind, probably. Why is he thinking about it? Why is he still here? In that moment Julia turns around, laughing - John’s heart squeezes and does weird things in his chest.  _ That’s  _ why. He can’t kick the image of her face hovering over him in the holding cell out of his head. It was there when he went to bed, it was there when he woke up, and, despite a crippling headache, it was  _ definitely _ there when he took a shower.

It’s way after midnight when she says goodnight to her drinking buddies and heads home. Alone. She lives about five blocks away. He shoots a menacing look at  these two men who let a woman walk home alone at this hour. Then follows her in his car. 

She seems to enjoy the walk. Her steps are light, careless, almost skipping at times. She’s smiling to herself. She removes her hairpin and shakes her head, letting her wavy dark hair fall down like a shimmery black waterfall, all the way to just below her shoulder blades - John almost drives into a van, parked on the side of the road. She’s skipping for real now, almost dancing down the street. He stops the car, hands clutching the wheel, following her with his eyes now. He’s at a relatively safe distance, a mere twenty yards from her building entrance. He can see her head tilting all the way back, her face to the sky. She spins around several times and starts laughing. Then just stands there, her eyes closed, her smile a  mix of bliss and serenity. In his whole life John has  _ never _ laid eyes on anything so wonderfully weird and mind-numbingly adorable. When she disappears inside, he has to remind himself to let out the air he’s been holding the whole time.

He sits in his car for a long while, the image of her still swirling in his thoughts. He knows this world for the dark shithole that it really is. He’s seen what lies below this seemingly peaceful surface. In his fantasy he’s brave enough to get out of the car, walk up to this girl and ask her, “What are you so happy about?” then look at the sky, following her dreamy gaze, and add, “What do you see out there that makes you smile like this?” He would have given the rest of his life to catch one glimpse of this world through her eyes. 

But then… the real question is - what can  _ he  _ really offer her? His life is on a whole different plane of existence. His phone can ring any minute now, and he’ll be packing his bag and leaving for what could be days, weeks or even months. Even if he gets her, does he really want this for her? For anyone? He shifts the car into drive and heads home. Enough. 

  
  


**Day 1, Monday, 04:15**

He wakes up before dawn. Even before he opens his eyes, he can see her again. She’s still dancing down the street, spinning, laughing for no apparent reason. John flips to his back and stares at the ceiling. He tries to remind himself why he left and went home last night. He has nothing to give. He’s barely a real person anymore. He’s a mere means to an end. But every time he remembers her smile he aches all over. What if he could? What if he tried? What if he told her what his life was like and she was willing? What if they made it work? 

The sleep is gone. He goes through his morning routine and gets more and more confident. That’s what he’ll do. He’ll tell her. Not everything. But he’ll tell her he can’t be there all the time. But when he is, he’ll give it everything he’s got. He’ll leave it up to her, that is if he can get her to talk to him at all. He’s scared shitless, yet excited beyond insane. He doesn’t have a plan. If she says no - no harm done. Eventually, he’ll forget her. And if he doesn’t, it’s only his own heart that he’s risking. 

By the time he’s ready to go, he doesn’t walk to his car - he sprints.

It’s quarter past seven. She’s not at her desk yet.  _ He _ is. He showed up at seven AM sharp with a huge box of donuts for everyone. Lucy is not here. The daytime secretary’s name is Alice. He likes Alice. Five minutes after he dropped the donut box on her desk, he knew how many years she’s worked here, how many kids and grandkids she has, how hard it is sometimes (to which he said… ‘sure’), and how handsome she thought he was. Oh, she also told him that  _ Jules _ had a meeting at human resources, which was after he confessed that he’d met her the other night, leaving out the part of him being in her custody at the time, and that he was determined to get her to agree to go out with him. Alice thought he was very sweet and romantic.

One look in the direction of her desk, as she’s walking out of the elevator, and Julia recognizes him. She has to give it to him - he cleans up good. He’s all aces - ironed navy blue shirt, black suit pants, shiny belt buckle. The top button of his shirt is open and the sleeves are carefully rolled up just one fold. His hair is still a mess, but it’s a tidy mess, a little spiky on the front, but short and flat on the sides. And she remembers those eyes, being drawn into them. She also remembers how minutes after calling her no more no less  than ‘fucking breathtaking’ and staring at her like a moron, he bent over and vomited on her shoes.  _ You’ve got to be kidding me _ .

He’s half-leaning, half-sitting on the edge of her desk, looking all cocky and confident. Julia walks straight to him.

“Nice outfit. Don’t tell me - you came to ask for my hand in marriage.”

He keeps his jaw from dropping,  which takes  a lot of will power, and manages a smirk. Fine. He can be bold too.

“I was thinking I’d take you out for drinks first. Maybe dinner. But yeah, that’s the general idea.”

_ Nice save, motherfucker _ . Julia eyes him from head to toe, drops her bag on the chair, and turns around.

“Let me save you the trouble. The answer is no. Get your ass off my desk and fuck off.”

“Why?”

For a moment she’s stumped. “Why? What do you mean why?”

“I mean what I said… why? Why is it a ‘no’? Why should I get off your desk? And why… that other part?”

She answers slowly, emphasizing every syllable. “N-o-t i-n-t-e-r-e-s-t-e-d.”

“Yeah, I get  _ that _ . How do you know?”

“What do you mean how do I…” She stops. She’s not getting into this. Time to go.

She circles the desk and pushes him off. He doesn’t budge. Doesn’t even move. She puts both hands on his arm and pushes harder. Weirdly enough, she can’t even make his upper body shift an inch, as if he’s a steel statue. And he doesn’t look like he  has to put an y effort into resisting. In fact, when she lifts her eyes to his face, he’s grinning down at her. Irritated and n ow even more determ ined, she uses her legs as leverage and throws the weight of her whole body against his. She’s muttering curses under her breath and huffing, but she keeps pushing.

“Need a hand?” He doesn’t say it, he fucking  _ whispers  _ it, still not budging, but having managed to bend his head enough to reach her ear. She growls from the effort, leans against him even harder. “You always this stubborn?”

Julia lets go at once. “You know what? Stay. Go. I don’t care.” She turns to leave.

He relaxes. She’s surprisingly strong. In fact, he was about to give in. He opens his mouth to tell her that she didn’t answer his question, and that he still doesn’t understand how she knows she’s not interested, when she swings around, leaps forward and crashes into him. Unprepared, he’s knocked off her desk, flying sideways and sweeping away files, paper clips, pens, pencils and her phone. His reaction time is good, but it’s not  _ that _ good. Before he knows it, he slumps against the wall and barely has time to catch her, as, carried by the momentum, she lands on top of him.

He can’t fucking believe it. Three years in delta forces, followed by two years of government training, all the combat experience, and he’s taken down by a girl half his size and, judging by the feel, probably half his weight. His shoulder hurts like a motherfucker, and he starts to wonder if it’s dislocated, because he can barely lift his arm to pull her up to a sitting position.

“You ok?” he asks, inspecting her quickly.

Julia is a little disoriented and shocked. She looks at the mess on the floor around them. Then at his legs bent at her sides, his arm holding her up. When her eyes finally land on his face, all she can see is remorse and concern. She snorts - once, twice, then once more. His eyes crinkle and they both burst into laughter. He pushes himself up against the wall, winces and grabs his shoulder.

“Oh God, did I break your arm?” She stops laughing and removes his hand. John watches her face, her eyes, the way they change, soften, fill with compassion. Then he shifts his gaze to her fingers, palpating his upper arm, his elbow. Her head is so close now that he can smell her hair.

“I’ll call an ambulance,” she determines, lifting her head and looking at him.

Her face is right in front of his now, merely two inches away. He swallows hard, unable to stop staring at her eyes, then her mouth. 

“Nah, I’m...,” he starts to say, but his voice is gone, strangled. He clears his throat. “... I’m good.”

“You should at least go see a doctor. Maybe your shoulder is dislocated.”

_ Maybe??? It takes all of his self control not to wail in pain. He knows the drill. He dislocated this very shoulder at least five times before. It’s kind of a loose cannon now. _

“What the hell???” A voice nearby makes them both look up.

A man is standing above them, probably in his late forties, wearing a uniform with the rank of sergeant. John is trying to remember if he’s seen him before. Julia speaks first.

“Sorry sir… I’m… He was…” She steals a look at John, then turns back to her superior officer. “I knocked him down. By mistake. It’s my fault. I’ll clean it up.”

The man shakes his head at her, and John notices something very soft and tender in his eyes as he does. He mutters a string of curses and extends his hand to help her up.

“By mistake, huh?” He glances around, then back at her, giving her half a smile.

“Yes, sir.”

He looks down at John. “You ok there, man?”

John nods, still holding his shoulder. “I’ll be fine. Just need to…” In one motion he pushes himself off the floor and stands up. “Excuse me, sir.” Barely able to bear the pain anymore, he strides to the back entrance and disappears into the corridor.

Julia runs after him and catches up just in time to see him slam his shoulder against the corner of cement wall. He lets out a small cry, turns pale, and falls forward against the wall, panting. Her hand flies to her mouth and she sprints towards him.

“Jesus… did you just…”

He nods, unable to speak, breathing heavily. You dislocate the same shoulder often enough, especially in the field, you learn how to put it back into its socket. It hurts like hell, but not as much as it hurts when it’s dislocated.

“Gosh, I’m so sorry…” She realizes she doesn’t even know his name.

Apparently, he’s a mind reader. Because he forces himself to half turn and offers his hand. “John.”

“Julia.” She shakes it carefully. Then gives him a smirk of a stare. “But you already know that.”

He flips all the way and leans his back against the wall, smiling down at her. “So… drinks? Dinner? Marriage?”

Julia sizes him up with a na rrow-eyed l ook and purses her lips. Her face gets that stubborn expression again.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why should I? I said no five minutes ago. It’s still a no.”

“But…”

“But what? I knocked you over, I said I was sorry. End of story. How does that change anything?”

He doesn’t have an answer to that. “But you don’t even know me.”

“Who said I want to?”

He starts to lose patience. “How the fuck do you know that you don’t want to if you don’t even know me???”

“I’ll tell you how,” she quips, stepping closer and looking at him defiantly. “The first time we met you almost smashed me with a bar stool.  _ Then _ you were  _ rude  _ to me and vomited on my shoes. Sound like someone you’d like to  _ get to know better _ ?”

“No.”

“So?”

“Can we start over?”

“Again… why?”

He lets out a frustrated sigh. There’s no arguing with this woman. “Fine. You’re not interested. Go back to your patrol.”

“Fine.”

“ _ Fine. _ ”

She walks away and slams the door behind her so hard that one of the fluorescent lights flickers and goes out. 

John stumbles to his car, shaking his injured shoulder, and swearing under his breath. He gets in and puts the key into ignition. Then stops, falls back against his carseat, and stares dead ahead. One problem. Now it’s not just an image of her in his head, there’s also her smell, the way her breath feels on his face, the way he forgot about the pain when she touched his arm and he took a lungful of her scent, the compassion in her eyes, the sound of her laughter. Basically, he’s fucked.

He gets out of the car and walks back into the precinct. Julia is gone. Her sergeant's name is Andrew Stevenson. He sees John and crosses the room in his direction, introducing himself and eyeing the young man with a mix of curiosity and suspicion. He doesn’t know what it is that he doesn’t buy in Julia’s ‘knocking him down by mistake’ story, but he wasn’t born yesterday. Something is off here.

He motions with his head towards a corner office, which turns out to be his, then looks back at John. “Want a coffee or something? Let’s have a word?”

 

**Day 2, Tuesday, 06:57**

John parks in the same spot, takes out another box of donuts, and heads to the precinct. He  _ does  _ have a plan now. Admittedly, it’s the dumbest plan in the history of dumb pla ns. But it’s all he’s got. He’ll just keep showing up, trying to strike a conversation, hang around with her colleagues. He’d gotten to know some of them yesterday. They seem like a nice bunch. He especially likes Stevenson. They talked for about an hour. In the end, John seemed to pass  _ whatever _ inspection he was undergoing, because the man wished him the best of luck and warned him that changing Julia’s mind was borderline impossible, but that she was worth  more than dislocating a shoulder . Somehow, John already knew that.

With dismay and horror, Julia watches as he enters the precinct, high-fiving her fellow officers, giving a peck on a cheek to Alice and shaking hands with Stevenson. If he comes near her, she’ll kick him where it hurts and make him miss the pain of the dislocated shoulder. Probably having figured out as much, he doesn’t. He asks Alice if she needs any help. She hands him a bunch of documents to xerox. He turns to Julia and gives her a smile. Just that. A part of her wants to smile back, because there’s something about him that’s just so fucking adorable. Luckily, it’s not  _ that  _ part that rules her life. So, she turns her back to him, sits at her desk and starts working. Her patrol doesn’t start for another hour. 

He catches her stealing glances at him when he’s not looking. He’s used to utilizing reflective surfaces to conduct surveillance. At any given moment that she’s in the precinct, he knows where she is and what she’s doing, despite staying out of her way. He approached her twice: once, bringing her coffee, which she threw into the trashcan, without lifting her eyes from the file she was reading; second time, bringing her a sandwich at lunchtime, which she handed to Dave, grabbing her keys and urging him to ‘ let’s get the fuck outta here’.

At the end of the day, when she gathers her stuff and starts to leave, he walks her out and holds the door open for her. It’s getting dark outside.

“Can I at least walk you to your car?”

“You can do better,” she snaps. “You can get a life.  _ Elsewhere _ .”

“Jules…”

“ _ Don’t. _ ” She lifts a finger and shakes her head. “Don’t call me that.”

“Why not?”

She puffs her cheeks and lets out an exasperated sigh. “‘Cause I don’t want you to. Bye.” She leaves.

John stays and follows her with his eyes until she safely gets into her car and drives away.

 

**Day 3, Wednesday, 03:47**

Julia can’t sleep. She tried counting sheep, drinking warm milk with honey, taking a long hot shower, calming herself by inhaling deeply and holding her breath. Nothing works. She keeps t ossing and turning. Every time she closes her eyes, he’s there - the way he looks at her, the way he stays out of her way, the way he talks to other people, the way he talks to  _ her _ : so open, so caring, so unpretentious. And his voice… she  _ loves  _ his voice. It distracts her when she’s trying to read a case file. She finds herself trying to listen into his conversations with Alice and other officers, not because she cares about what they are saying, but because she can’t have enough of his voice. 

She flips to her back. He pisses her off and drives her nuts. He’s a stubborn menace. But his eyes... She sighs and closes her own. She remembers his face so close to hers, when she was checking his shoulder. She’s  _ never _ seen such expressive eyes. For a moment there she thought she wouldn’t be able to stop looking into them, feeling herself drowning in that pale blue. She slides down, grabs her pillow, covers her face with it and half-growls half-screams into it.

Because it’s not just his eyes, or his mouth, or his smile… It’s all of him - his posture, his body, his arms, his hands, his legs. She remembers how strong he was, sitting on her desk, flexed into solid steel to the point that she couldn’t move his arm. But then she remembers how gentle he was, pulling her off of him, helping her sit up. And she also remembers how he fell. He could’ve protected his shoulder. Instead, he twisted himself to the side to catch  _ her _ . He blocked her fall and let her slam into him, driving his shoulder into the wall.  _ God, she misses him _ .

He follows her everywhere, why not here? Why not to her home? Into her room? Her breathing gets faster. Then slower. She closes her eyes. Her mind is a twister of images as she starts to drift off. She imagines him walking in, sitting on her bed, slowly running his hand over her. Then lying next to her, hovering above her, touching her face. She can see his eyes smiling at her as he leans down and kisses her. And she kisses him back with everything she is, leaning into him, aching for him. In her dream he’s everything she ever wanted.

 

Julia wakes up exhausted and grumpy. No more dreams, no more fantasies. She walks into the bathroom, takes a shower, and gets dressed. In general, she doesn’t give a rat’s furry ass about makeup or caring what her hair looks like. And it drives her insane that she spends nearly an hour inspecting her face in the mirror, ends up putting on some lipstick and changes her hairdo three times.

She’s five minutes late for her shift. And she’s  _ never _ late. She  _ hates _ being late. And therefore she hates  _ him _ . She finds him placing a cup of coffee on her desk. She could kill for a coffee right now, she’s that tired. But she demonstratively lifts it up and throws it out. Then walks to a coffee machine and makes one herself, all the time cursing and hating him even more for feeling so pathetic.

To make things worse, fucking Dave calls her ‘a stubborn fool’, opens his phone, finds her contact, writes down her phone number and hands it to John while she’s watching. To make things  _ even _ worse, the handsome menace takes the paper, and, never looking at it, without taking his eyes off of her, walks over to the shredder and slides it in.  _ Motherfucker _ . A part of her, the same part that kept her up last night, wanted him to put it in his pocket and give her a call. Luckily, the  _ other _ part of her will bust Dave’s balls as soon as they go on patrol.

 

**Day 4, Thursday, 13:49**

Julia’s been on patrol since the morning. They had two prisoner transfers and three domestic disturbance calls. She had to climb the stairs to the eighth floor of a city block with a broken elevator. She’s tired beyond words and can barely see straight when she finally gets back to her precinct, slumps into her chair, and drops her head on top of her folded arms.

She’s not sure how long she’s been sitting like this, when she gets the distinct feeling of being stared at. She’s too tired to care.  That’s when she feels a hand on her head, softly sliding to her elbow, fingers curling around it. His thumb rubs against the fabric of her uniform.

“C’mon,” he says in a soft, low voice that makes her go limp inside. He gently shakes her arm. “Get up. Have some coffee.”

Her head shoots up, eyes bloodshot, face sunken.  She looks at the cup of coffee on her desk.

“You ever give up?” she mumbles, slurring barely coherent words. 

One corner of his lips curls up. “No more than you do…  _ apparently _ .”

She sighs, reaching for coffee, then looks up. His eyes are overflowing with concern and a touch of joy. “Thanks,” she murmurs.

“My pleasure. And I’m fucking  _ warning you _ \- you throw that away and I’m making you a new one.” When she just smiles back, he points to the cup. “I didn’t know how you take coffee. I drink black, no sugar. So that’s how I made it. Ok for you?”

She takes a sip and winces. He’s got to be kidding her. It’s a bitter disaster. She hands it back. When he arches a brow, she softly lays a hand on his wrist. “It’s too strong. Sorry. Could you make one with two sugar and a little bit of milk?”

He almost literally chokes on his own breath. “Sure,” he mouths, unable to produce a sound, and he walks away, thinking that if they don’t have sugar or milk, he’ll go to the end of the world to get it.

Julia sits back and follows him with her eyes. She’s still smiling. It’s then that she sees a wrapped sandwich on her desk. Right. It’s lunchtime. Although this time something is different, and she notices a yellow paper triangle sticking from underneath it. It says  _ “I’m not here for Dave. Please, eat me.” _ Before she has a chance to wonder if he means it literally or… she’s blushing so hard that her whole face feels as if it’s on fire. Her heart is racing, pounding hard, and her hand is shaking when she slips the note into her pocket. She scopes the room until she sees him looking at her. His smile is a little shy, but mostly wistful. Waiting for her coffee to be ready, he gives her a small wave.  _ Smug motherfucker, I hate you _ . But she waves back, grins wider, and digs into the sandwich.

John is pouring milk into Julia’s coffee, when he hears a familiar voice behind his back.

“J, coffee and a smoke?”

It’s Stevenson. They’ve known each other for less than four days, but it’s become a tradition of sorts. Every day, around this time, the sergeant walks out of his office and comes to fetch John for a cigarette break. It usually takes more than one cigarette. They go outside, sip coffee, smoke and talk. By now John knows about the tragic loss of his family, about how and when he moved to Philly. Apparently, he’s originally from Baltimore, which gives them something to talk about, since John grew up there. They talk about the service, too. Not John’s  _ current _ service, but the army. Andrew did two tours in Vietnam. He doesn’t say much about it, but he knows John can read between the lines and fill in the blanks.

But mostly they talk about Julia. That is,  _ Stevenson  _ talks about Julia, telling John bits and pieces about her, trying not to divulge anything she wouldn’t want him to. John listens. He listens to all of them. And they all have only one thing to say - she’s the kindest, sweetest kid they’ve ever met. She’s not a kid, though, John thinks, she’s a beautiful woman - stubborn, headstrong, and yet fragile - that he wants to take into his arms, hide from the world and never let go.

“My  _ God _ , you’re smitten,” Andrew laughs, jolting John back to the real world. John realizes he’s been just standing there, absentmindedly stirring the sugar into Julia’s coffee and looking at her.

He feels himself blushing and looking away.

“So? Meet you outside?” Stevenson asks again.

“Sure. I’ll just…” he motions to the coffee in his hand, then to Julia.

“Take your time. See you there.”

John places the coffee on Julia’s desk, then picks up the empty sandwich wrapping, balls it and, almost without looking, throws it into a trash can half way across the room. It’s a square hit. Smug and happy with himself, he looks back at Julia.

“I’ll be outside.”

“Daily Stevenson drill?” she smirks.

“Something like that. More like a neverending briefing.” He inspects her face. She looks better, still tired, but nowhere like she was before. “You ok?”

She sighs, pulling a file from a pile on her desk. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. Go ahead. I’ll see you later.”

He cocks his head to the side. “As in… you’re looking forward to it?” One of his eyebrows crawls up slowly and tentatively.

“Don’t push it,” Julia gnarls at him. But she takes the coffee and draws a long sip. Her face breaks into a blissful smile. “Gosh, this is perfect. Thank you.”

 

**Day 5, Friday, 19:23**

Julia is leaving and John is holding the door open for her, like he does every night. It’s been hot and humid all day, but, come the evening, the weather finally settled down and a cool breeze is a welcome and pleasant surprise. They walk down the stairs, shoulders almost touching, in silence. They are both quite happy and a little scared. 

“I’m off on Sunday,” Julia says, speaking first. Then, before he  takes her the wrong way, she clarifies: “In case you’re planning on coming. I won’t be here.”

“I know,” he smiles, looking up at the deepening blue of an evening sky.

“You’re really good at finding out shit about people, aren’t you?”

“Yep. That’s what I do. Among other things.”

She considers it. “So, your job is kinda… on and off? Seeing how you’ve been here the whole week?”

He shifts his eyes to her face. “My job is not here. Sometimes I have to leave. And I’m away for… sometimes days, sometimes weeks. It varies.”

“Huh. You mean, one of these days you’ll just be gone?”

A muscle on his face wobbles. “Yeah. But I’ll try to let you know. If I have time. Sometimes, I don’t. Is that ok?”

Julia shrugs one shoulder. “Sounds… complicated.”

“Too complicated?” His throat is almost shut.

“No,” she hurries to answer, sensing the sadness overwhelming him. “Well,  _ maybe _ . But I guess, it’s not that big of a problem.”

But it is. She doesn’t know the half of it. It can be weeks, sometimes months. He’d be gone. She’d never know when or if he’s coming back. There’d be a letter for her, out there, waiting to be delivered in case he dies. He can be called away in five minutes, later on tonight, tomorrow, a week from now. He never knows when. He never knows where. But he’d have to leave her. And he wants to drop dead right here right now just thinking about it.

He shakes his head, looking at her. “It’s not an easy life,” he says finally.

Suddenly, she comes closer, places a hand on his shoulder, stands on tiptoe and presses her lips to his cheek. “Life’s never easy, silly,” she whispers, her breath touching his skin. “It just has to be worth it.” She kisses him again, inhaling deeply. “Night, Johnny.”

His heart flips and twists, every inch of him that she touches, breathes on, is burning. The sound of her voice, the way she softens his name to ‘Johnny’, makes him almost tear up.

“Night, Jules,” he dares, looking deep into her eyes, challenging her to object to him calling her that again. “See you tomorrow.”

She steps even closer. “Say that again.”

Johnny lifts an eyebrow. “See you tomorrow?”

Julia smiles, “No. The first part.”

He sticks his hands into his pockets and narrows his eyes. “I thought you didn’t want me to call you ‘Jules’.”

She scoffs, backing away. “Fine. Don’t. Bye.”

She’s turning to leave, but he grabs her wrist and pulls her back. “Say it.”

“No!” She purses her lips. 

Johnny bends his head lower. “Say you want me to.”

“ _ Fine _ !” she almost screams. “I  _ want  _ you to!”

His arm goes around her waist, drawing her closer, all the way. His hand slides to the small of her back. “Now I don’t know…” he whispers, pressing his forehead to hers. “Are we still talking about your name or…?”

“No,” she murmurs, but then retreats: “Yes.”

He presses his mouth to her cheekbone. “Jesus, you’re stubborn.”

“I know… I don’t know why.” Julia clenches at his shirt.

His lips travel up, to her temple, then into her hair. “You’ll figure it out. Goodnight, Jules.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Suddenly, thinking about what he said about his job, she’s scared.

“You will.”

 

**One Day Too Late, Saturday, 07:53**

He’s not there. It’s been fifty three minutes and he’s not there. Julia is numb all over. He’s gone. Was he called away? Did he tire of her stubbornness? Alice, seeing her distress, tells her that he might be stuck in traffic. Julia nods, tries to smile, thanks her. But she knows it’s not true. He was never late. He’s like her, he hates it when things and people are not on time. He’s like her in so many ways. And he’s gone.

She pulls his arrest file. Right away she knows his last name is fake. Maybe the first name too. She really doesn’t know anything about him. She doesn’t have his phone number, nor his address. She tries the number in the file and gets a dry cleaner's place downtown. She’s looking for the donut box, to see if there’s a receipt inside - maybe he paid with credit card. She finds the box in the dumpster, outside, climbs all the way in, fetches it. There is no receipt. There’s nothing. He’s gone. He was just holding her, kissing her face, talking to her. He told her she’ll see him today. And she knows he meant it. She could feel it with every fiber of her being.

She goes back inside, sits at her desk, waiting for Dave to come back so they can drive off on patrol. She’s not sure she can make it - working, going from one stupid call to another. All the time thinking that she might never see him again.

“Hey!” Stevenson approaches with a cheerful smile. “What’s with the face? Where’s your man?”

Julia jumps up and storms out, walking fast at first, then sprinting into a run.

Andrew finds her sitting on the stairs near the back entrance, in her usual hiding place. She’s curled into a ball, head stuck between her knees, and she’s weeping. 

“Oh baby,” he sits next to her, his heart breaking, forgetting he’s supposed to be her superior officer. All he can see is a five year old girl, who came to give him a hug when he first moved into her neighborhood. He pulls all of her into his embrace, rocking her from side to side. “What happened, squirrel? What’s wrong?”

Julia hides her face in his chest and cries harder.

“Is it J? Did something happen? That why he’s not here?”

“He’s gone. I was too fucking stubborn. Or he was called away. But he’s gone, Andrew.”

“Horseshit. He’d  _ never  _ give up on you. No man in his right mind  _ would _ . And if he was called away, he’ll be back.”

She sniffs. “You don’t know that!”

“My angel,” he kisses her head. “I do. He’s told me some things about his service years. He was Delta Force, did you know that? Those guys are very capable. Whatever he does now, I’m sure he’s good at it. And he has  _ you  _ to come back to. How can he not?”

“Yeah?” She lifts a stubborn face and looks at him. “He doesn’t  _ know _ that! He doesn’t  _ know  _ he has me!”

“Jules, quit being a dork already. He’s known he had you from day one. He’s just been waiting for  _ your  _ stubborn ass to figure it out.”

She sniffs again, her voice calming down. “You think?”

“I  _ know _ , dummy. Everyone in the  _ precinct  _ knows.”

Julia pulls away, wiping her tears and nodding. “He said he could be gone for weeks, months even.”

“So? We’ll be here when he’s back.” Andrew winks. “Oh, and he left something for you.”

“How…” she looks puzzled.

“Well, he told me he could be called away. Coupla days ago. He said if he is, before you quit jerking him around, I should give you this.” He pulls a small  piece of  yellow pad paper from his chest pocket and hands it to Julia. “Do you know what it means, though?”

She frowns, reading out loud:  _ “Best donuts in town, don’t you think?” _

She turns the paper over, but there’s nothing on the other side.

“Do you get it?” Andrew asks impatiently.

Julia shakes her head. But then feels a smile curling in the corners of her mouth. “I think… it’s a clue.”

“A clue?”

“Yeah!” She smiles wider, starts laughing. “I think it’s a game.”

“Uh-huh. And the winner gets…?”

“Johnny.”

“I dunno, Jules. Seeing how you’re the only player and you already got  _ Johnny _ …”

She considers it. “What do you think he does? His job, I mean?”

Stevenson shrugs. “Mmm… take the fact that he’s ex-military, add the way he and his buddies were released on the spot in the middle of the night, plus how he’s called away… I’d say government. My best take.”

“Right. Mine too. And I don’t think it’s  _ just _ government. Some kind of… agency. Maybe private, maybe government. Maybe a contractor. But I think it’s classified. I mean, have you seen his file? The other ones? It’s all bogus. Fiction.”

Andrew nods. “So what? He couldn’t give me his phone number or home address? That’s just bullshit.”

Julia laughs. “Nah. I think he’s just screwing with me. For all the crap I’ve put him through. But I think this is his way of giving  _ me _ his address and phone number.”

“Ah.”

“Yep.”

“Ok, but Jules…” Time to get back to being her sergeant. “You do the game thing  _ after _ work.”

She throws her arms around him, drops a loud kiss on his temple, and sprints back inside, skipping and jumping.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I remember when this story was first born as a Christmas tale. The three of us, NikitaSunshine, Gnomecat and myself, had a hell of a time imagining it and laughing about it. And I remember how we always wanted to hear more of Quinn's side of it.
> 
> I've enjoyed reliving it, writing it from both of their POV. 
> 
> NikitaSunshine, I can never thank you enough for letting me drag you along into all that silliness. You're such a thoughtful soul, and I know chapters like the previous one are the ones that really capture your imagination. But you let me be silly and crazy in love with those two, and you always keep saying "They deserve it, give them everything you've got". So Yay, we're finally back where it all started before the final effort. And you've doctored this one, again, making it into a coherent tale. LOVELOVELOVE
> 
> Gnomecat and Violiko, it would never be fun to write and imagine this story without the both of you there to love it and woohoo along.  
> xoxoxo


	12. Eight Nights of 'Yes'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> >  
>> 
>> _  
> **“Let us love like the spark  
>  Between flint and stone  
> In reckless abandonment,  
> Promising no eternities,  
> But promising only to seek out  
> Upon each day’s sunrise  
> Something to choose to love  
> In each other.” **_
>> 
>> _**― Justin Wetch, Bending The Universe  
> **   
>  _   
> 

By the end of her shift, Julia is a nervous wreck. But she keeps her word, finishes the paperwork, submits all the reports. She’s not sure if it’s excitement or fear. In the end, she stops trying to figure out which and settles on both.

One thing she needs to understand is why she kept pushing him away so hard. Because she knows herself. She’s stubborn, but she’s not a fool. She knew she wanted him when he asked her how she could be sure she didn’t. She remembers his voice, when he whispered _‘You’ll figure it out’_ kissing her hair, just yesterday. She wonders if he knows the answer. And she finds herself tearing up every time she remembers how he was about to kiss her, really kiss her, but seeing how she wasn’t quite there, just backed off. She was ready. She wanted him to. But he wouldn’t, despite having her in his arms, not until she was absolutely sure. Who the fuck makes men like that anymore?

She digs out the damn donut box from the dumpster again. _“Best donuts in town, don’t you think?”_ That’s what his note says. There’s nothing on the box suggesting a possible clue. Nothing but the address of the bakery. After submitting her last report and signing the last of the witness statements, she sprints off to her car.

The place is still open. She’s never stepped foot in here before. It’s a small family business. The customers are scarce. The place offers a small menu for eating in, mainly hot beverages and baked goods. She walks around slowly, looking for little notes, more clues, reading daily specials.

“Miss Julia!” At the sound of an unfamiliar voice speaking her name, she turns around. The man talking to her looks to be in his sixties, almost completely bald. His long, open face wrinkles into a wide smile. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

“Hi,” she says, cautiously, shaking the hand he offers.

“Would you like some coffee? Tea? We have a fresh batch with strawberry filling just out of the oven. A perfect way to start an evening after a long day.”

Julia doesn’t quite know what she’s supposed to say. So she just goes for it. “Am I supposed to? I mean… to have tea and a donut?”

His laughter is wholehearted. “Oh no, my dear. Nothing like that. You’ll get what’s waiting for you anyway. But the young man _did_ say that you like the strawberry ones. And that you might need a minute of quiet if you come here in the evening.”

Her eyes well up. She’s not sure she can take weeks or months without him. She grants the owner a polite smile and nods. “I’ll have some tea, thank you. And yes, I would love a strawberry one.”

Three minutes later she settles at the corner table and a young woman with a smile much like that of her father’s places a donut, a cup of steaming mint tea, and an envelope in front of her. “It’s our treat, ma’am. Enjoy. And say hi to that fine man of yours when you see him. Come visit us together sometime.”

“Thank you. We will.”

She says ‘we’ and a wave of joy spreads all over her from the inside out, making every inch of her skin tingle. She imagines walking in here, holding his hand, leaning against his arm, pressing her cheek to his shoulder as he chooses their food. He’d let go of her palm then, but only so that he can throw an arm around her, slide his hand to the curve of her waist, pull her even closer, kiss her head, then tilt it up so he can brush his lips against hers. He’d whisper that he’s famished, then smile next to her mouth, and they’d both giggle, flashing back to _why_.

She opens the envelope.

_“Dear Jules (if you’re still mad at me for calling you that, you’re welcome to kick my butt when I get back),_

_I don’t know if we ev_ _er ended up having the_ _chance to talk about it, but if we didn’t, I might as well tell you now. My job takes me away sometimes. I can be gone for a long time. I wish it were different, and now, having met you, I do so even more. It’s not easy with me, and it probably won’t be for a while. I can’t say more, but if you finish the paper-chasing trail, I’ll try to explain when we meet again._

_That being said, I don’t expect you to follow through. I want you to. Very much. But if you think you’re not ready, or not willing, then just enjoy your coffee (or tea), your donut, and I hope you have a life every bit as wonderful as you are._

_This is not a test. You owe me nothing. This is my way of either saying goodbye or letting you come to me. I wanted a chance to make you smile, even if you decide you don’t want this, us._

_I don’t know where my job took me this time. But wherever I am when you’re reading this, I’m pretty sure I’m missing you like crazy. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite like you. And, whatever happens, I’ll always be happy I did._

_Yours,_

_J_

_P.S. When you’re done eating, you’ll get another clue. Where I had my training, we used to call it a ‘lost burner routine’. And yes, I know you probably think I’m a pathetic loser. Normally, I’d agree. But right now I’m too happy to care.”_

The tea is sweet, mixing with the saltiness of the tears in her throat. No, she doesn’t think he’s a loser, pathetic or otherwise. And when he comes back, she’ll make him even happier. Every day.

She finishes the donut quickly and eagerly jumps up. The owner hands her an old model Nokia phone and gives her a small wink, saying that she’d left it here last time she visited. _Right, the ‘lost burner routine’._

She powers it up and goes through the menus. There’s a single number in the call log, marked as ‘Outgoing call’. That’s it? That’s his number? One stop?

Walking out of the bakery, she dials.

After three rings another voice she doesn’t know comes through. Again, what’s she supposed to say? She thinks about it and, in the end, just introduces herself.

“Miss Diaz, pleasure to hear from you,” the voice says. “Should we get your table ready right now?”

“I’m sorry… a _table_?”

“Yes, ma’am. You can come in now or any other day. It’s all been taken care of.”

He gives her the name of a restaurant she’s never heard of, then an address. She writes it down and says she’ll be on her way.

Fifteen minutes later she walks into a cute little bistro. A waitress greets her by the name and shows her to a small table for two in the farthest most inside corner. It has two sets of plates and glasses. For a moment, her heart races and she looks around, almost expecting to see him walking up to her, saying that it was all a joke and he’s never gone anywhere. But then she knows - it’s a date. The dinner he promised.

She’s given a special menu with redacted prices and she’s told to choose anything she wants. It’s all been taken care off. When she settles on her meal of choice, she’s given another envelope.

_“So, I stood you up. I’m an asshole. By now you know I had little choice in it. But I feel like shit not being there anyway._

_But! If I were there, we’d be having our first date. I’ve got to be honest with you - I suck at traditional dating. I don’t think I’ve been on a real dinner date… ever. But if we meet again, we will go on one together. That’s a promise. I’ll have you dress up for me and I’ll take you anywhere you want_ _to go_ _._

_If I were there, what would we be talking about? See, I’m not a big talker. But I have a feeling  you’d make one out of me. For now, let me start by telling you a story. A confession, really. The kind of thing I want to get off  my chest, just in case we DO happen. There’ll be many things I won’t be able to tell you, about my job, for example. But I do want to come clean about something._

_Before I showed up at your precinct, I spent half a day following you around. I couldn’t get an image of you out of my head. When you uncuffed me, in that holding cell, I couldn’t take my eyes off of you. And I meant what I said. You ARE fucking breathtaking._

_I was in my car outside the bar where you met up with Dave and Shorty and I followed you home. At that point it was just to make sure you get there safely. BTW, remind me to punch Dave for letting you walk home alone after midnight._

_Anyhow._ _There I was, sitting in my car, watching you, and you did something that blew my mind.You skipped and danced. Just like that, in the middle of the street, you smiled and laughed. If I hadn’t known that you’d only had one beer in that bar, I’d probably assume you were drunk. How do you do that?_ _If I had more courage, I would’ve asked you right then and there. But I still want to know. What do you see in this world that makes you so happy and full of life? See, I miss that. If we make it work, one day I’ll tell you why. But for now, what I want you to know is that my job has to do with the worst of this world. And I needed it so much - to see someone still loving it. I hope you can teach me how to feel like that again._

_Finally, when I got home, all I could think about was that I want to walk by your side one of these days, watch you skip and dance for no reason. Or maybe I want to be a part of that reason. A part of what makes you happy._

_Enjoy our dinner date for the both of us._

_Yours,_

_J._

_P.S. If you want to kick me where it hurts for invading your privacy like that, you have my permission. Just… you know... not too hard, ok? In case we want to have kids one day. Just saying.”_

Over the course of dinner, Julia reads his letter again and again. In her head, she’s telling him that it’s a good question. She really doesn’t know what made her so happy that evening. Something just did. She remembers imagining herself taking off and flying away. It happens to her sometimes. She’s been like that since she was a little girl. And in her head, she tells him why.

She’s telling him that whatever happened to him, whatever made him so disillusioned about the world, maybe they can fix together. She’s not really sure how much she likes it herself. In _her_ line of work she’s seen some terrible things as well.

She tells him that she doesn’t believe in God, fate, or sixth sense. But maybe what made her so happy that day was a feeling that something wonderful was about to happen to her. Because the following day, it did.

She tells him she never cared much about dinner dates herself. She hates dressing up and going out. But she’ll take a dinner in bed, wearing nothing but bedsheets, maybe not even that, stuffing food into each other’s mouths and kissing in between.

Finally, she tells him that if he were to walk by her side, she wouldn’t be skipping and dancing. Ok, maybe a little. She’d hold his hand and she wouldn’t want to fly away, because she’d know she’s where she belongs.

 

When she’s done eating, she’s given a small pinkish gift card. The waitress tells her that it’s for an Italian gelateria, just around the corner from the bistro.

There, Julia gets a cone of strawberry sorbet. And another envelope.

_“Too cheesy? The ice-cream, I mean? I’m so all over the place that I can’t tell anymore. I don’t even know if you like ice-cream. My sister did. She was a sucker for all kinds of sorbets. I’d always get one for her on our way home from school. Is this place any good? I never had a chance to try. But, I mean, Italian gelateria… I figured not many ways THAT could go wrong._

_I was thinking about making this paper-chasing shit longer, and I had quite a few more ideas, but I didn’t have much time to prepare. When I’m called away, it’s usually on a very short notice and I need to leave pretty much immediately. We can do another one some time, if you want to._

_When you arrested me and I had to give contact info for my file, I gave the number of a dry cleaning place downtown. It wasn’t meant for you. The guy who owns it… Let’s just say it’s work related. You probably tried calling that number (I know I would). Anyway, call it again, give your name, and he’ll explain the rest._

_Yours,_

_J._

_P.S. It’s across town. Drive safely.”_

  


When Julia gets there, the place is closed. But the moment she’s out of her car, a man comes to the front door, looks around, opens it just a crack, and waves her in. Leonid, the owner, appears to be in his late thirties. He doesn’t strike Julia as the type who’d spend his life in a dry cleaner’s shop, let alone own one. Having noticed her suspicious look, he tells her that the place has been in the family since they immigrated from Ukraine when he was barely seven years old. Both his parents had passed away, his sister moved to Canada with her husband, and so, once he was discharged, he took over, seeing how he could never bring himself to sell the place, and it suited his disability just fine. By disability he means his left prosthetic arm, amputated just below the shoulder. Swiping dust from a chair he’s fetched for her, he tells her he’s a special forces veteran, then invites her to sit and brings two sets of old Russian tea cups on little plates, as well as a small pot of home brewed tea.

She’s still sipping her tea when he gets up from the table and goes to the back of the store. When he returns, there’s a pile of freshly folded clothes in his hands. Apparently, she’s supposed to pick it up. That is _if she wants to_.

Moving his cup to the side, Leonid places the clothes on the table and puts his hands on top of them. His eyes, when he looks at Julia, get a distinctly discerning expression, as if he’s prepared to share a secret with her.

“You don’t have to take it,” he says, and in that instant his faint smile disappears completely. “We do deliver. John said that if you feel it’s too heavy, you should just leave it. I’ll take care of it.”

It’s all in the _way_ he says it, holding her stare, accentuating the words _‘if you feel it’s too heavy’_. She’s thinking about everything she knows about John, all the things he told her about his life, his job. He’s giving her a way out, no harm done. She can leave here, go back to her life, forget any of this ever happened.

Not a chance. “I’ll take it,” she says. There’s no hesitation in her voice. She grabs the clothes and puts the pile on her lap, wrapping her arms around it.

Leonid smiles again and takes two envelopes out of his pocket, handing one over to her.

“What’s in _that_ one?” she asks.

“Nothing you’ll ever need to read,” he replies, then picks up his lighter, sets the other envelope on fire and tosses it into a metal trash can.

Julia holds onto his pile of clothes even tighter as she watches what she can only assume is Johnny’s goodbye letter burn to ashes. In those flames are the last of her doubts.

Leonid pours some more tea for the both of them. He tells her then that he’s Johnny’s contact. Should she ever need anything, should she ever be in any kind of trouble when Johnny is away, she should come directly to him.

Julia thanks him and starts to leave. As Leonid holds the door open for her she turns around, steps closer, and places a soft kiss on his cheek. He smiles a little and gives her a slight nod. She sees it then - the deep loneliness surrounding him. He's as reluctant for this night to end as she is. She’s wondering if she should ask if he needs a hand closing up. But she knows the type all too well. The truth is, he reminds her of Johnny. And of Andrew.

“Actually…” she starts, looking at him tentatively, “it’s been a long day. Way too overwhelming. And it’s a long drive to where I live. Do you mind if I… that tea was absolutely wonderful. Could I have another cup?”

Leonid’s grin widens, his whole face lighting up. “Sure. I would love that.”

He waits for her to come back in and closes the door. He’s fussing around with the teapot, throwing away the old leaves and filling it anew. Then goes and fetches some jam, telling Julia that it’s his favorite and that he hopes she likes it. It’s a Russian “thing” to have tea with jam, he says. His grandmother had the best recipe and he still uses it, making a fresh batch at the end of every summer.

They chat for a while, about everything and nothing. Leonid tells her how happy he is that she stayed. He was wondering whether he should ask her to, but he didn’t want to appear rude. He lives in the small apartment right above the store. He and Johnny meet up every night after closing when Johnny's in town, drinking tea and talking about books. He says they go way back, that he owes his life to Johnny. He doesn’t give her the details, but Julia knows it to be true. He also tells her that in all the years he’s known Johnny, he’s never seen him this crazy about anything or anyone. And he can see why he likes her.

In the end, Julia asks if it would be ok if she came to visit him again, later. She could swear there are real tears in Leonid’s eyes when he just nods, speechless, before giving her an awkward hug. She wraps her arms around him and promises she’ll see him tomorrow. And she smiles, thinking that Johnny might be away for a while, but she’s found someone who connects her to him.

She opens Johnny’s final letter walking back to her car.

_“Fuck. This was supposed to be the most important letter. But sitting here, knowing what it means that you’re reading it, I can’t think straight. Maybe when I see you again, after I hold you until my arms fall off and kiss you until we’re both out of breath, I can be more eloquent and tell you what it really means to me._

_Jules, I’ll be back. I know you might be worried about me, and for some fucked-up selfish reason, it makes me so goddamn happy. But please, don’t. I’ll be back before you know it, and I’ll find you. I know I said it can take months, but usually it’s a couple of days, two weeks tops._

_I know what I can offer is very little. Sometimes, I can’t believe how stupid I_ _am_ _to think anyone would agree to such life. But you have. And all I can say is that everything I CAN give is yours. It might not be much, but it’s all I have, and all I am._

_Yours. All yours._

_J._

_P.S. Leonid makes the best strawberry jam in the world, seriously. He’ll probably make you drink tea with him until you puke. He’s a great man, one of the bravest I’ve ever met, and a hell of a friend. I think you’ll like each other. He’s too proud to ask, but he gets lonely. We keep each other company quite often. Why am I telling you all this? Fuck if I know. Maybe… I guess I’d love to see the two of you be there for each other while I’m away.”_

Turning around, Julia sees that Leonid has not moved from the door to his shop, making sure she gets to her car safely. She waves and he gives her a small military salute.

Inside the envelope there’s also a note with an address and a phone number. She memorizes it and sets it on fire. Not because she’s been instructed to, but because all this spy shit is just too damn exciting.

His place is an apartment in a tall building just two blocks down the street. Nobody is home. She stands there for a while, feeling the excitement of the evening slowly fading away. The truth is, she _is_ worried. And it’s the first time ever that she realizes that if something happens to him, she might never know. He just won’t come back. And all she’ll have left of that kind, beautiful man is four letters, an old phone, and a pile of clothes.

Her back to his door, she feels her knees give and slides to the floor. She lowers her head on top of his shirts and pants and closes her eyes. She sits there for a while, just breathing, dreaming. He'd said that when he comes back he’ll hold her until his arms fall off, that he has so much to tell her. It makes her giggle softly and bury her face in his clothes. She highly doubts that after he kisses her until they’re both out of breath, that they’ll be doing any talking.

  


The following week is a blur. During the day, Julia works. She throws herself into her job even harder than usual. She can’t think about Johnny, how much she misses him, all the time, or she’ll go mad.

Everyday after work she drives to his place. She knows he’d said he’d find her. And she trusts him. But she needs to be there for reasons she doesn’t understand and is not even trying to. She just does. Every night she sits on the floor by his door, waiting for him.

Sometimes, she stops by Leonid’s dry cleaning shop and has tea with him. She helps him clean and close up. They don’t talk much, but they enjoy each other’s company.

On the third night, after they are done with Leonid’s chores, he brews more tea and, as usual, they settle behind the counter. Leonid keeps glancing at Julia and smiles at his thoughts. He does that quite often, and she always wonders what goes through his mind.

“I can’t decide,” he says finally, sipping his tea and looking at her with a faint dreaminess in his eyes.

“Can’t decide what?” Intrigued, Julia sets down her cup and leans forward, her elbows on the little table between them.

“You two remind me of Gray and Assol. But I can’t decide which is which. Because, you see, in the end, Assol tells Gray that he was just as she imagined he would be. And now John will come back and you’ll get to find out. Or will he get to find out?”

To say that Julia is confused would be the understatement of the century. Leonid can be peculiar like that, she knows. He’s not a man of many words. And it’s not the first time that he ends up blurting just the last part of his musings, leaving her in awe and puzzled as to what brought him to this point.

“Leonid, I have _no_ idea what you’re talking about,” she laughs.

He shakes his head at his own inarticulateness, gets up and goes into the back. Julia can hear him moving things around and muttering curses in Russian. Finally, he seems to have found what he’s looking for. When he comes back, he’s holding what appears to be a handwritten manuscript. It’s about twenty pages stapled together, really. He hands it to her and takes his place at the table.

“Is called Scarlet Sails. Or Crimson Sails. Whichever translation you prefer. You see, is an old Russian novel. Maybe a fairytale even. By Alexander Grin. I never liked the translated version they have on Amazon. So I translated it for John myself. He likes to read. Not many Americans read as much as he does.”

Julia flips through the pages, her eyes wide with amazement. “You did all that? For John?”

“Yes,” he says, pleased with the admiration in her tone. “He liked the story when I told him about it. Wanted to buy it on Amazon. I said no way. I have to translate it myself. He has another copy. I rewrote it more neatly for him. You can take this one.”

“Oh no, I shouldn’t,” Julia shakes her head. “But thank you.” She tries to give it back.

“It’s a gift,” he urges her. “From me. It’s a beautiful story. And when I think of the two of you, this…” he points to the manuscript, “is what comes to my mind.”

Julia nods, putting the story on her lap. “What’s it about?”

“Being rewarded for never giving up on your dream,” Leonid sums it up. “It’s about Assol, a little girl who grew up without a mother. Her father carved a boat out of wood for her but had only had crimson silk to make the sails. An old man sees her boat and tells her that one day a crimson sail will glimmer on the horizon, and under it will be the man of her dreams, coming to take her away from the place of her childhood.”

“Oh,” Julia laughs. “And let me guess… one day it did.”

Leonid scoffs softly, laughing. “Well, it wasn’t _that_ simple. See, Gray, the man she was bound to fall in love with, was an heir to a rich family. But he was a dreamer himself - all he wanted was to roam the seas, become a sailor. He ran away, and later became captain of his own merchant ship.”

“With crimson sails?”

“You have a patience of a three year old,” Leonid grumbles, but his face never losing the smile.

“Sorry… go on.”

“So, Assol grows up an outcast in her village. She still carries the little boat around with her. One day, Gray comes there, and he finds a girl sleeping on the ground in the woods. He’s fascinated by her and can’t get her face out of his mind. He asks around and is told that she’s a crazy local girl, who’s obsessed with a prince coming to save her on a boat with scarlet sails.”

“Oh Gosh! So he goes and fits his ship with red sails???”

“Yep,” Leonid smirks, taking another sip of his tea. “And he comes back for her, scarlet sails shimmering in the sun… and she runs into the water to meet him. When he lifts her from the water, all wet, she looks at him for the first time and she says _‘Just as I imagined you.’_ See, she’s never seen him before. But he _has_ , and he still has her face in his mind.”

Julia smiles, looking at her own copy. “And John likes it?”

“Pfft… you kidding me? When he told me about you, he said… It’s like in that story, I can’t get her face out of my head.”

Julia’s laughter rings and jiggles. “I see. And _other_ than that...?”

Leonid considers it for a short while and shrugs. “I dunno. The dream, I guess. Finding it. Not letting it go. Something… I dunno.” Then he thinks of something else and adds: “But you see, the reason I can’t decide… when he comes back, he won’t know you’re here waiting for him already. It’s like both of you are a little Assol and a little Gray. Or maybe not." Abruptly, he shakes his head and waves his hand dismissively as if to wipe the thought from his mind. "Bah, it’s just a stupid fairytale.”

 

That night Julia reads the story. Truth be told, she’s not big on reading, never has been. She reads a thriller or two a year. A part of her is worried now, knowing that Johnny loves reading and has long conversations with Leonid about the books they’d both read. Leonid tried to ask her about a book or two that he wanted to discuss, but she hasn’t even heard their names, nor the names of their authors. She knows she has to start somewhere, fully realizing she will never be able to catch up. She’d asked Leonid about Johnny’s favorite books and he gave her three titles. She’ll get them tomorrow.

She’s smiling as she drifts off, thinking about Assol and Gray. For some reason her mind travels twelve years into the past, to the cemetery in Baltimore. She never forgot a sad teenage boy she met, who, without knowing, changed her life. For years she’d been wondering what happened to him. She used to scold Andrew for teasing her about having a crush on him, but deep inside she always knew it wasn’t far from the truth. She knew nothing about him. But every man she ever dated ended up being measured against her idea of him. And not one of them managed to replace the tender memory of Peter in her head. No one. Except Johnny.

She was never the sentimental type. But when she’d had her cast removed, she saved the piece with the quote Peter wrote on it. Andrew had it covered in some kind of protective polish. She still has it.

That night she has a dream that she will remember for many years, despite not knowing what it means for a long time to come. She dreams again of Johnny, but now he is wearing Peter’s clothes, stained with blood. He’s giving her what looks to be a yellowish piece of plaster. Except it’s not. It’s a small wooden boat with sails made out of crimson silk.

  


On the eighth night, she's at her usual spot outside his apartment, sitting on the floor by the door. She's about to give up, pulling herself to a stand and preparing to leave alone once again. The elevator doors open, and she swings around. He steps out and into the hallway, sees her, and stops dead. In her whole life she’s never seen a sight more beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.

The sharp lines of his face etch the tale of where he’s been. Looking at his fallen features, the drawn down corners of his mouth, she knows enough of the story that she’s aware he can never tell. He looks wearied, drained, exhausted to the point of barely standing. His hair is greasy and dusty, his lips so dry they are cracked. On his left shoulder there’s the strap of a long, narrow bag, containing what she can only assume is a rifle. On his right one - a dirty duffel bag. His shirt is wrinkled and stained. The only thing still alive about him are his eyes, the way they light up and turn the brightest blue when they rest on her face.

She opens her mouth to say something, but stops. All this time, missing him, thinking about him, and it’s only now that it really hits her. Her entire existence distills into a single thought: he’s alive, he’s safe, he’s home. And just like that, the image of him standing right in front of her blurs behind her tears.

She doesn’t hear him crossing the distance between them. But she feels his palms, rough and dry, gently cupping face, then his lips on her eyelids.

“Johnny…” she sobs, and her hand crawls up his side, to his chest, clasping a fistful of his shirt.

“I’m here, I’m ok.” He steps closer, still holding her face, kissing the tear marks on her cheeks. “Don’t cry, silly. I’m home.”

“I’ll cry all I want, you crazy badass motherfucker!” she nearly shouts, raising her voice, tugging on his shirt even harder.

“Ok… ok...” he laughs, shaking his head at her, then touching his forehead to hers. “God I’ve missed you, you stubborn pain in the ass.”

She yanks him in with everything she’s got and presses her mouth to his, hot, frantic and desperate, feeling him gasp at first, then let out a low groan, his arms coming all around her, drawing her so close to him that she can feel her body molding into his.

“I hate you!” she sobs, kissing him again and again, her hand releasing his shirt, her own arms looping around his neck so tight there’s nothing left between them. “So much…”

Johnny tears himself from her lips, slides his face against hers, and lets his head fall onto her shoulder. “I hate you more,” he laughs.

He’s so tired that he’s about to faint. The last time he slept was for a three hour period over two days ago. But he needs her, all of her. Pulling himself together, he places his hands on her sides and picks her up, lifting her against him until her face is slightly above his. She wraps her legs around him and cradles his head in the circle her arms. Falling back against the wall, Johnny closes his eyes.

“Home,” he whispers.

She kisses his hair, running her fingers through it, then his forehead, his temples, his eyes, his cheekbones, his nose… she kisses him everywhere, slow and tender, breathing in his scent, letting him breathe in hers. When she finally reaches his mouth, he lets out a soft cry. They kiss for a long time, slowly, gently, caressing each other’s lips, her arms around his head, his hand deep in her hair.

“Oh my fucking God…” Fairly breathless, Julia pulls away just slightly, still dropping soft kisses on his mouth between words. “I can’t stop…”

“Don’t…” he breathes.

“Johnny, you’re barely standing. Let me down.”

“Not a chance…” He kisses her deeper this time, making her gasp and hold on to him tighter. “I fucking couldn’t sleep for eight days thinking about this…”

“Oh _really_ ,” she giggles, beaming with joy, as the tips of her fingers caress the side of his face. “Tell me.”

“This,” he smiles into her eyes. “I don’t know why, but all I could think about was coming home and finding you here.”

“I was here every night.”

He smirks. “You stubborn little moron…”

Her fingers slide to his jawline, then the side of his neck, making him shiver. She trails butterfly soft kisses all the way to his ear. “So…” Her breath is hot and urgent. “Anything _past_ coming home and finding me here?”

“Mphhhhhh… _yeah_.”

“Yeah?”

“ _Yeah_ …” He looks at her, his eyes a mix of adoration and yearning. “ _Lots_ of ‘anything’.”

“Uh-huh…” Julia’s smile turns playful, then out right mischievous. “Was I any good? Just trying to figure out how high the bar is.”

Johnny grins. “You were… _incredible_ ,” he pushes past embarrassment and gives into the image that took his breath away every time he could afford to let his mind wander. “Naked, beautiful, passionate… _all mine_ . And you were _so_ good you made me _weep_.”

“Damn,” she laughs, breathing faster. “Wait, what about you? Did you make _me_ weep???”

Johnny kisses her. “You fucking kidding me? It was _my_ fantasy. I was _so_ good that I made you scream and beg for more.”

“Hmm… _Your fantasy…_ sounds… _rather familiar_.”

He grins wider, feeling himself blush. “Oh, _really_ … Was _I_ any good?”

“Johnny... You ruined me for other men. For _life_.”

“ _Jesus…_ Talk about setting the _bar_ too high...”

They giggle and kiss again.

“Jules,” he whispers, reluctantly pulling away. His smile is tired. “Is it ok if I ruin you for other men tomorrow night, though?”

Her heart breaks. She places a soft hand on his face and kisses him with every bit of tenderness she has in her. “Don’t you dare feel bad about it.”

He rubs his nose against the side of hers. “Thank you. Fuck, Jules, I’m so tired.” But his arms draw a tighter circle around her, unable to let go.

Julia smiles. “I will.”

Puzzled, he tilts his head back and lifts an eyebrow. “You will _what_?”

“Just stay with you tonight. If you want me to.”

Feeling the tears welling up, Johnny nuzzles his face between her head and her shoulder. All those dreams, all those fantasies, and what breaks him is how she knows just what he needs, even when he’s too ashamed to ask. “I want you to.”

Julia’s mind races ahead, planning the evening, thinking about what she can do to make it more efficient, so that he can go to sleep as soon as possible.

“Hey, you hungry? When was the last time you ate? Do you have any food inside? I could run down and get some, while you take a shower.”

He’s starving. Last time he ate was yesterday morning. He doesn’t have shit inside. And he’s not letting her go _anywhere_ , not without him.

“Tell you what... Let me just drop my things inside and I’ll take you out for dinner. Then we’ll come back, take a shower and go to sleep. Sound good?”

Julia’s head ducks back, her brow furrows skeptically. “For real? You wanna go on a _date_ ? _Now?_ Looking like _this?_ ”

“No. What I _want_ is to be able to take you inside and never get out of bed with you until we both happily die of starvation. But life’s full of disappointments, and the least I can do is take you out for dinner.”

Somehow, Julia knows that arguing is not an option. She sighs deeply, nods and messes his hair. “Fine. But nothing fancy. Hamburger or pizza. And you’re off to bed.”

Reluctantly, he sets her down on the floor and releases his arms around her. Then unlocks the door, throws both his bags inside, locks it again, and takes her hand.

In the elevator, he leans over and places a kiss on the top of her head.

“Not gonna ask me where I’ve been?”

Julia considers it for a moment. “I figured if you could tell me, you would.”

Johnny nods, lifts her hand and presses his lips to the back of her wrist. “Will you be ok with that?” he asks then, not smiling anymore. “If you never know where I go?”

She takes a deep breath. “I think so. I mean, I might… _not_ be, not _all the time_. And I’ll worry. But we’ll work it out.”

He hits the ‘stop’ button, pulls her against him and tells her what he does for a living.

“I thought something like that, yeah,” her eyes well up again.

His lips curve up next to her ear. “Hey, but when we get married, I’ll quit.”

 _Still a ballsy motherfucker, aren’t you?_ Julia smacks him on the back of the head. “ _Depends_ . Does it pay well? Because when we get _married_ , I want three kids.” Feeling him swallow hard, she smirks. _That’s right, you asshole, I can make you choke on your breath too._ “So we might need the cash. And God knows _my_ salary is crap.”

Johnny kisses her so hard that she feels her knees weakening. _I’ll have a dozen with you,_ he thinks. “Deal. On all of it.”

The small burger place he has in mind is barely ten minutes away. Julia drives, and by the time they get there he’s passed out on the passenger seat, his head fallen to the side, his hand on her knee.

She makes a U-turn and drives back to his place. The whole time, he doesn’t wakes up once. Julia finds a quiet spot at the far side of the street and parks the car. She turns on the heater, opens one of the back windows just a crack, and lets him sleep. Soon, she dozes off herself.

It’s almost six AM when she wakes up, a little disoriented and sore all over from sleeping all night in the driver’s seat. Johnny is still out. He hasn’t even moved.

She needs to go to work. Trying to be quiet, she takes his phone and puts in her phone number, leaving the contacts screen open, naming the entry ‘Fucking Breathtaking’. She pulls on the door handle, fully intending to sneak out and take a taxi home to change before heading to the station.

“It’s like you haven’t heard a word I said about what I do,” he quips in a sleepy but fairly amused voice. Even before she has a chance to turn around, he unbuckles himself and leans over to her side, burying his face in the curve of her neck as his arms lace around her. “Jules,” he places a lingering kiss in the soft spot right below her ear. “You should’ve woken me up.”

She sighs. “ _Sure_ . In _your_ stupid opinion.”

He snorts into her shoulder, shaking his head. “Thank you.” Feeling her fingers in his hair, he almost drifts off again, until his eyes fall on the dashboard clock. “ _Shit!_ it’s past six.”

Julia nods with a bitter smile. “I know. I really need to go to work.”

“Fuck…” he sighs, looking guilty. His hand creeps across her tummy as he places a long wistful kiss on the apex of her shoulder. “This is not how I imagined waking up today.”

Julia lets go of the door handle and leans into him, smiling into the blue glow of his eyes. “Tell me.”

Johnny shakes his head and kisses the tip of her nose. “No.”

“Why the fuck not???”

“Because you hate being late. And it’ll take a _very_ long time to tell you what I wanted to do to you this morning.”

She sighs, a little frustrated, then drops her head onto his shoulder. “Ok, you crazy badass motherfucker. Go home, take a shower. And get some more sleep.” When he ignores her and just holds her even tighter, she kisses him. “And you better be _very_ rested and _very_ clean by the time I come over tonight.”

“Fuck, Jules…” he growls, grazing her neck with his teeth.

“Fuck’s right,” she laughs, pushing him away. “ _Go_. I’ll see you later.”

 

He looks at his watch. Twenty past seven. Her shift was supposed to start twenty minutes ago. Did she get there on time? Did she get there safely? Johnny turns to his side and stares at the phone in his hand. Should he message? He doesn’t mind her thinking he’s being clingy and overprotective. But he wants her to be able to work and think about _work_.

It hits him hard then. What he does and what she does might be different, but she’s a cop, she carries a gun, chases bad guys with guns of their own. He goes numb all over and pushes that thought deep into the darkest corner of his mind. Not now. Not _ever_.

That’s when his phone buzzes.

-You better be asleep. I was wondering if I should message at all. I got to work safely, everything is ok here. We go on patrol in twenty minutes. I’m wearing my vest

-Fucking mind reader

-Go to sleep already

-Trying…

-Try HARDER

-Need you here

-Imagine I am

Johnny grins and flips to his back.

-Tell me

-Ok. But you promise to go to sleep then?

-Promise

-So… Imagine us both in your bed. We’re too exhausted to even move. Because I did make you weep and you did make me scream, over and over, it went on for HOURS. You slide off of me and fall on your side. I scoot up until your head is pressed against my chest, right under my chin. My face is in your hair, my arms are all around you, you can hear me breathing, whispering to you. You hold me tight against you. And you doze off, thinking about what you’re going to do to me again when we wake up.

His heart is pounding harder and faster, his vision getting blurry, his fingers barely managing to punch the right keys.

-Fuck, Jules. Get your ass over here

-Hey, you ASKED

He smiles, rolling to his side again.

-You sure I’m too exhausted? Because I think I could go once more

-Yes, silly, I’m sure. I’m the one who exhausted you, remember?

-Right

-Now sleep. I’ll see you soon

-Jules, I can’t wait

-Me neither

-Be safe, ok?

-I will. Stop freaking out

He does. Within a minute he’s out like a light, still clenching his phone in one hand. Smiling like a smitten teenager, thinking that she’s wrong, and he _could_ go once more.

 

Julia comes back to the precinct at lunchtime. Knowing he’s finally asleep, she managed to concentrate on work and time went by faster. It’s almost three PM and she just has a little over four hours to go. She’s starving, a little tired, but all in all content to the point of almost skipping as she walks in.

Johnny is half-leaning, half-sitting on the edge of her desk. There’s a brown paper bag next to him. He’s dropped the fancy act too: he’s wearing a khaki tricot shirt and an old pair of light blue jeans. His hair is all over the place - still wet from the shower, spiky and messy.

Her silly smile matches his shy one as she crosses the room, accompanied by the loud woohooing of everyone in the precinct, trying to ignore people settling their bets. She doesn’t care who won the pool on how many days it would take them to get together. She falls into his arms, hiding from everyone, sliding her hands to his back, and she lets out a soft happy moan when he covers her mouth with his.

“Hungry?” he whispers, rubbing his nose against her cheek.

“Famished,” she smiles.

“Want some coffee too?”

“Maybe later. What did you bring?”

“Tuna sandwiches. Leonid knows a nice place. I tried them once or twice before. They’re good.”

She kisses him again. “Yum. Let’s get outta here. I know a… more quiet spot.”

He looks around, blushing a little. “Are they ever going to stop doing that?”

“I doubt it. They probably already have a pool going on how long it takes for you to knock me up or for us to get married. C’mon.”

She takes him to the back stairs, away from the noise and all the commotion. He sits down, dragging her onto the stair below his. She pulls up her knees and he crosses his legs around her, handing her one of the sandwiches and worming his free arm around her waist as she leans back against his chest. He’s already chewing, when she stretches up and presses her lips to his neck.

“I plan to get used to this.”

He slides a finger under her vest and tickles her tummy. “You will, silly. Eat.”

They finish their lunch quickly and just sit there, listening to each other’s breathing, warm afternoon sun on their faces. The sky is deep blue and looks as vast and as beautiful as their hopes for the future, starting right here, right now.

After a while Julia takes his arms and draws them tighter around her, then does the same with his legs. Johnny laughs softly into her hair. He wonders if she’ll ever know how much he loves her just for needing him like this.

“Happy?” he breathes with a lingering kiss on her temple. Julia nods, wiggling even deeper into him. Johnny covers her head with his palm. “Just a few more hours, Jule,” he whispers, smiling as she groans in frustration. “I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”

“Mphhhh,” she huffs into his neck. _Way to make it easier, you motherfucker._

He laughs. “Want me to throw you over my shoulder and haul you away?”

 _Better._ “Yes, please.”

“Stevenson will shoot me. And _I’m_ not wearing a vest.”

Julia giggles. “Guess what?” she asks, looking up and smiling when he plants a loud kiss on the tip of her nose. “I have two days off now. Ended up working last Sunday. And this Sunday too. So…”

“Oh man… So we have…”

“Yep. _You_ have… two whole days and three nights to _make it up to me_.”

“Oh, I plan to.”

  


It’s late August - the hottest month of the year. His place doesn’t have central air. Johnny looks at the takeout boxes and tries to figure out whether he should just shove them into the fridge. He highly doubts they will eat any time soon. He’s a bundle of nerves, aching and squirming all over with anticipation.

His place is a dump. He never cared about what it looks like until today. It took him three trips to the garbage chute, laden with as many trash bags as he could carry each time (and he can carry quite a lot…). Then almost two hours to gather his books, CDs and clothes and make it look like he actually gives a damn about how he lives. He had to buy new bedsheets and throw his old ones away.

All that work, and when he hears the knock on the door, it suddenly doesn’t matter anymore. He gathers the food cartons and throws them into the fridge.

He barely manages to catch her mid-leap and lift her up. She crashes into him, nearly knocking him off balance, and _definitely_ knocking the last shreds of conscious thought out of his mind. The last thing he remembers wondering about is whether he kicked the door shut hard enough. _Oh, fuck it_.

It takes him about three seconds to come to the realization that all of his wildest fantasies are about to pale next to the image of her throwing her head back, moaning and sobbing with pleasure under his touch. He manages to stop once, when the last of their clothes is gone, and she’s in his arms again. Standing in the middle of the room, holding her up against his chest, feeling her all around him, he looks into her eyes long and hard, with every bit of longing in his heart and soul, as if daring her to see all of his lost hopes and broken dreams mending around her. Julia slides both hands to the sides of his face. “I know,” she whispers, caressing his lips with hers. And he’s lost: all of him, to all of her. But then he’s found, for good this time, anchored into this moment so hard that the world seems to stop spinning, years of war and death fading away, shattering against her arms around him.

They don’t make it into bed until after the first time. And even when they do, he barely reaches the edge before his knees buckle and he collapses on top of the covers, taking her down with him. Laughing, Julia cradles his head on her shoulder, in the loop of her arm, her other hand stroking his back and shoulders, as they rise and fall hard and heavy.

“Funny, huh?” he grumbles, sinking his teeth into her clavicle, then kissing it.

She laughs louder: “Considering the fact that you almost dropped me… yeah, a _little_ funny.”

One arm around her waist, he picks her up, balancing both of them on his other hand, throwing her across his bed onto the pillow, crashing on top of her again. “I’ll never drop you,” he assures her, looking happy, smug, and full of himself.

Julia stops giggling and looks up at his face, hovering over her. She places her palm on his cheek and slides a thumb over his lips. Her smile is dipped in the dreamy pool of wistfulness.

 _“Just as I imagined you,”_ she mouths, almost inaudibly, wondering if he’ll even remember the quote.

His breath cuts between his chest and his throat. He can’t be sure if he wept when he had her, but he knows he’s about to _now_.

 _“And you too, my dear,”_ he breathes Gray’s reply to Assol next to her mouth, grinning with joy. “So, Leonid got you hooked on his Crimson Sails, huh?”

“I _loved_ it.”

He nods, kissing her. “Yeah, me too.” Then, flipping to his back, he pulls her on top of him. His smile gets a little cocky. “So, I have a question…”

Julia blushes a little, rolling her eyes. Yeah, she should have warned him. “Shoot.”

“How many times _exactly_ did you just…”

She laughs when he can’t even finish the sentence. Then leans down and brushes her lips against his. “It’s better if you don’t keep count.”

“Oh?” he arches a brow, sliding his hands along her back all the way to her hips.

She wrinkles her nose. “Yeah…”

“So, you’re one of them girls that…”

“Uh-huh.”

“Fuck _me._ ”

She snorts, looking at the incredulous expression on his face as it spreads into the silliest grin she’s seen on him to date. “Thinking you’ve just won the lottery?”

“Mmm-hmm,” he props his head on his folded arm, tracing a finger down the side of her face and tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear. His smile gets fainter, until it’s gone completely. “Jule… we’ll make it work, right?” The light of his night lamp reflects in the watery film forming in his eyes. “Tell me we’ll make it work.”

Julia pushes herself up and slides her arms around his neck. “C’mere, silly,” she murmurs, kissing his face until he lets out a soft longing moan. “We’ll make it work. I promise.”

He shakes his head. “How can I ever leave you now? Make you wait for me? Worry about me?”

Her smile widens, tinged with both devilishness and delight. “I’d rather think about how you can make it up to me when you come back.”

Johnny laughs softly, removing an arm from under his head and wrapping it around her neck, pulling her head down until her mouth crashes into his. “Deal,” he whispers between kisses that become more urgent and impatient by the second.

 

  


Hours merge into a single image, a collage of mirth and bliss. By the time they drift off, it’s nothing like Julia wrote in her message, although they _are_ exhausted to the point of sweet oblivion, and he _is_ still claiming he could go once more. But she doesn’t have it in her to scoot up and cradle his head next to her chest. Instead, she snuggles into his arms, her head in the fold of his shoulder. The last thing she remembers is kissing him still, kissing him _more_ , smiling and giggling at his silly jokes.

Before she falls asleep, she finally remembers what it was that she needed to figure out. Because at that moment she understands that she won't be waking up in the morning with a man who is just another date. His life is too complex and unpredictable for that. He's offering her everything he has in the world, everything he has left. And that's what she had to be sure she could accept before telling him yes. She had to know that when they're past the point of no return and she's involved in exactly what he didn't want for her, that she would be able to promise him and herself that they'd make it work.

Johnny stays up a little longer than she does. Everytime his eyes close, he forces them open again. He looks at her, sleeping peacefully between his arms, and he’s more scared than he’s been in his whole life. Because he knows she took a leap of faith with him, and he knows how deep the rabbit hole really goes. He imagines her sleeping alone when he’s away, and he wishes there was more of him around her _now_ , for every time he won’t be here. He battles the urge to kiss her, wake her up, he needs to see her eyes again. Because much like Gray in Crimson Sails, every time he looks into them, he sees all that is best in a person, and, what’s more, all that is best in the world. And in that moment he finally understands what it _is_ in this world that’s _still_ worth fighting for - it’s her.

He barely touches his lips to her brow and she stirs in his arms, smiles. She sighs his name, wiggling closer and planting a sleepy kiss on his chin.

“Sleep, already,” she snorts, nuzzling her face between his cheek and the pillow.

“Told you I could go once more,” he smirks, stroking her hair.

“Bullshit.” He can't see her smile, but he can feel it spreading wider.

“ _Excuse me???_ ”

“You heard me. B-u-l-l-s-h-i-t!”

He huffs, opens his mouth to protest, but thinks better of it. He’s bluffing. She knows it. And he loves it about her, the way she can just see through him, even in silly things like this.

“Jule?”

“Mphhh what?”

His smile gets cheeky. “Did I… ruin you for other men?”

She snorts again and presses her mouth into the soft spot just below his throat. “Want me to try it with other men and get back to you on that?”

“What??? _NO_.” Joking or not, he feels a sharp pinch at the base of his spine.

“Then shut the fuck up and let me sleep.” When he just nods and holds her tighter, she sighs and emerges from under his chin. “C’mere,” she whispers, meeting him half way for a mind-bogglingly sweet kiss. “You ruined me for other men before you laid a hand on me, you crazy badass motherfucker.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. _Really_. And if you go to sleep now, you can ruin me again tomorrow.”

“Oh, I plan to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To NikitaSunshine - I _DO_ need you (Ha!). See why? No? Well, tough tomatoes!
> 
> To Gnomecat and Violiko, here's the rest of it. Before going back to 'today's events'.
> 
> xoxoxo


	13. I, Quinn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> >  
>> 
>> _  
> **There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself.**  
>  _
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> _  
> **Eckhart Tolle**  
>  _  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nikitasunshine... and to think this one was supposed to be breezy... Luckily, with you, it never is. All that 'niggling' and there we go, moving from the happiness of breaking free to facing the past, owning up to who and what you are.

**July 2016, 9:03PM**

Back in his room, Quinn sits alone peacefully, feeling the newly found joy of his liberated life taking over. He lifts his legs, gets comfortable. Propping his back against the pillow on the elevated head of the bed, he grabs his phone.

Carrie answers on the first ring, making his smile grow even wider.

“What took you so long?” she demands right away, although her voice is more relieved than anything else.

The last time they spoke, he’d messaged her that he’d get back to her as soon as possible. That was almost three hours ago. And he knows Carrie all too well to presume she’d stopped wondering for one second why he hadn’t been taking her calls.

“Had to…” what’s the word? “... take out the trash.” He chuckles at the comparison, a vivid image of Dar’s body spattered on the asphalt popping into his mind again. There’s a small pause. He knows Carrie understands he’s not talking literally. “I’ll tell you when we meet,” he adds, when she still doesn’t respond.

He hears her sigh. “Fine,” she quips. “You ok, though? How was PT?”

“No fucking idea. Wasn’t there.”

“Quinn…”

He stops her before she can go into the whole lecture about how he will never get better if he keeps skipping his therapy sessions. “Last time, I promise.”

She huffs in exasperation, then just shakes her head and lets it go. She’s been in his face about neglecting his treatment for weeks now, and she’s not alone. Normally, he just jokes it off or finds an excuse for why he couldn’t make it. It’s gotten worse since Johnny came along. Quinn’s been skipping sessions right and left just to steal another hour with his boy. Everyone knows it and everyone lets him get away with it, because it just melts everybody’s heart seeing the two of them finally getting back the life they were robbed of years ago.

Carrie’s heart melts too. But she’s not letting it slide: he needs the workout, he needs the therapy, both PT and with his psychiatrist. It drives her insane how everyone just refuses to see how important it is. The last thing Quinn needs is his friends being soft on him and indulging his careless disregard of his own health. But she hears him say the word ‘promise’ and she lets it go at once. Quinn is a stubborn menace, true, but if he promises to do something, he’ll do it.

He can hear the clicking of silverware and soft chatter in the background, suddenly realizing it’s late and that he’s caught her having dinner.

“Where are you?” It’s really none of his business, but the words are out before he has a chance to stop himself.

“Prague, actually.” Carrie gives an apologetic smile to her company, motioning to her phone and indicating she’s about to finish the conversation.

Congressman Keane and the head of her presidential campaign wave her off, saying she can take her time, as they are still busy going over the national security brief she’s prepared. Nodding a ‘thank you’, Carrie gets up from the table and, accompanied by a Secret Service agent, walks onto the small balcony, overlooking the beauty of the Old City across the shore of the Vltava river. The sight is breathtaking.

“Prague?” She hears Quinn’s voice.

Carrie smiles, lighting a cigarette and picking up the wine glass she’s carried outside with her. “ _I’ll tell you when we meet_ ,” she says, mocking his words from before. He laughs. She remembers she can’t _really_ tell him why she’s here. “Well, I’ll tell you _some_ things,” she corrects herself.

She wishes he were here. She wants to tell him everything despite being sworn to secrecy. The new offer she just received a few days ago, the honor that comes with it. She’s turned down all offers of going back to the agency. She’ll work nine to five, be there to take Franny to school, be back to spend the rest of the evening with her. She can’t tell him about her involvement with the presidential campaign, but she can’t wait to share her new business plan of founding a law firm taking on cases of Muslim prosecution. She knows he’ll be proud of her. After all, isn’t that what he always wanted for her?

“Secretive,” he remarks, smiling wider.

“It’s not what you think,” she assures him, suddenly realizing he probably assumes it has to do with the agency. It doesn't take her long to recognize why it bothers her - their lives have been drowning in the darkest secrets of this world. And eight weeks ago that darkness almost consumed them both. “Just not the best time. And not over the phone.”

He laughs. “Carrie, it’s fine. You don’t owe me an explanation.”

“No, I know.” Damn, this is hard. It’s like nothing she says comes out right. “I mean, I’ll be back tomorrow and we’ll talk then, alright? You’ll tell me about your three hour long ‘trash’ project, and I’ll tell you… well I’ll tell you _some_ things.”

“Sure. No rush,” followed by a pause a tad too long to be a comfortable silence. Quinn clears his throat. “Carrie?”

“Yeah?”

“It was the right call. Waking me up. I couldn’t have helped you. I really didn’t know anything. But it was the right decision.”

Carrie swallows hard, feeling the blood draining from her face, hot flashes that have nothing to do with the wine she’s drinking rolling all over her.

“Quinn, I…” She stops.

There’s nothing she can say to make this better. She didn’t want to go through with it, but she was ready to let him die. Or worse, end up permanently brain damaged. And what’s _even_ worse, she _knows_ he thinks it was the right choice. But she also knows what _d_ _oes_ bother him, or _should_ bother him: she’s had eight weeks to tell him about it and she never has.

“Carrie.” His voice is soft. So low and tender, wrapping around her name, that she feels the tears welling up. “I wasn’t sure I should bring it up at all. But I felt I needed to.”

Her heart flips and trembles. She’s still getting used to it - him _talking_ . He’s changed over the past month. At first she thought it was the PTSD, the therapy, dealing with what happened to him, recovering from anoxia. But it then it got more intense, especially since he met Johnny - he’s smiling all the time, laughing, joking with her. And _talking._

Ever since he started walking entirely on his own, he’s been insisting they take a stroll around the hospital every night she comes to stay with him. She knows about his family now, his childhood, him losing them, about his life with Julia all those years ago. He asks her about Franny, asks to see the pictures Maggie keeps sending, even saves some of them on his own phone. About a week ago he told her that he shatters inside every time he thinks that if he hadn’t disobeyed an order four years ago, Franny might never have existed. And that’s how Carrie learnt the truth about how and why they met. And how much she never knew about all the things in her life that she owes to Quinn.

She remembers Julia’s words, what she said to her after she’d stopped Saul from waking him up. She said she understood their position; that to them, to the Agency, he was an active operative, a possible source of information, means to an end. But that all she herself could see was the man she loved once, the man who had dreams, the father of her child. When Carrie looks at him now, all she can see is the man who’d saved her life, over and over, saved _Saul’s_ life. She sees the man whose integrity had saved the man she loved once. He was never just a means to an end to _her_ . And he is so much more _now_.

“You still there?” he asks, when she says nothing for some time.

“Yeah. Here.” Carrie wipes her eyes, realizing her voice is strained and breaking.

“Carrie, it _was_ the right choice.”

She lifts her eyes to the sky, taking a deep breath. “You wouldn't have. To me. You would never…”

“You don’t know that. _I_ don’t know that. And it really is besides the point. I’m telling you this, because I want you to stop beating yourself up over it.”

“I’m not.” It’s a lie, and they are both painfully aware of it. She doesn’t even know why she’s lying to him again, or why she feels the need to anymore.

Quinn’s initial response lies somewhere between a sarcastic ‘Right’ and a cynical ‘Fine’. He’s almost dragged into it again, following Carrie down their usual rabbit hole of things left unsaid, unresolved anger.

“You are,” he says instead. “And, Carrie, I don’t want you to. Not over anything that has to do with me.”

 _Motherfucker_. Carrie needs to get back. She’s keeping the woman who might very well be the next President of the United States and her future chief of staff waiting. But she can’t get enough of this, of Quinn, of this sudden change in him, the sound of his voice. He’s always known her. She knows how he feels about her. But it’s never been more out there. And she’s never been this content, definitely not with him calling her on her bullshit like that.

“I’ll try.” It’s the best she can give him right now, but she hopes he can hear the smile in her voice when she says it.

He laughs again. It’s a start. Knowing Carrie, it’s the start of a very long road. But she’ll get there, eventually. _Maybe._

“Hey, you wanna have dinner and talk sometime this week?” He figures he might as well ask now. The last time he said they should probably talk was almost three weeks ago. And neither one of them has brought it up since.

“Yeah, ok. When I get back. Maybe a couple of days after that.”

“Sure.”

“Any more exciting plans for the evening? Who’s there? It’s Max’s shift, isn’t it?” Carrie feels herself relaxing again, falling into the familiar routine of the past two months.

“Actually, nobody. Plans for the evening…” He smiles, thinking about it. He does have some unfinished business to take care of, and he’s not going to sleep before he does. “...I need to talk to someone.”

Carrie’s mind works fast. If he knows about their plans to wake him up, he knows why it fell through. “Jules?”

“Yeah.”

“Go easy on her. For _your_ sake. I was _there_. She’s one scary woman when she’s mad.”

Quinn smiles. He wouldn’t know. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Say hi. I gotta go back. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah.” Quinn’s about to hang up when he remembers something. “Carrie?”

“Yes?”

“You like beer?” he asks out of the blue, and Carrie almost removes the phone from her ear to make sure she’s still talking to Peter Quinn.

“Umm… I’m not a _huge_ fan, but in general… I _guess_. Why?” There’s still some caution in her tone when she asks.

Quinn rolls his eyes, wondering if it’ll ever change. But he pushes past it once more.

“Find an actual tourist guide and look up Klásterní Pivovar. I think it’s also called Strahov Monastery brewery or something. Best beer _I’ve_ ever had. And order a side of roast sausages in dark beer sauce. Trust me. You’ll thank me.”

Carrie laughs. “I _do_ trust you. Although, this _would_ be the first when it comes to _food recommendations_. Oh, and also… I’m a vegetarian, Quinn.”

“Fuck. _Right_ ,” he winces. He actually _did_ know that. “I don’t think they have anything _remotely_ vegetarian in there. Not that I remember, anyway. French fries maybe?  But hey, you can always smuggle a sandwich in your purse.”

Carrie snorts: “I’ll let you know if I need tactical support with _that_ one. Ok, gotta go for real now. Night, Quinn.”

They say goodbye, both grinning, both looking at their phones for some time before moving along to the rest of their evening. Both thinking that if this is the new normal, then they should redefine the old weird. But then both figure they’ll just see where it takes them.

Before going back in, knowing she’s just being rude at this point, Carrie snaps a picture of the Old City Prague. Without adding a caption, she sends it over before she loses the nerve.

Quinn looks at it for a long time. Carrie doesn’t know, but Prague has a very special place in his heart. He’s been all over the world in his years with the agency. But Prague was the only city where he didn’t carry a gun, the only vacation he’s _ever_ been on. He still remembers the haze of those three days: the crappy hotel with questionably clean bedsheets and walls so thin that they had to be really quiet at nights, which, on a side note, never stopped them; slow walks during the day, just strolling, holding each other, looking around; kissing with lips frozen in the cold outside; the taste of beer, mulled wine sold on every corner; happiness like nothing he’s ever dared to even dream of since.

  


**9:21PM**

Quinn searches for Julia’s number next. But then he stops, smiles and closes the dialer. Before he knows what kind of high school bug bit him, he opens Telegram.

-You free?

The reply makes him laugh out loud.

-For you - never

-Hot date?

Julia looks at the message bubble and wonders if they’ve adjusted his medications again. She glances at her ‘hot date’, snuggled under her arm, his head resting against her chest.

-Yep. The man of my dreams - tall-ish, dark hair, blue eyes, great smile. My usual type

Quinn raises an eyebrow, sliding down in bed and turning to his side.

-I can’t compete with that one, can I? Give him a kiss for me

 _Compete?_ She moves her mouth from side to side, wondering where this is going and what’s gotten into him. She leans down and drops a kiss on Johnny’s hair, whispering that it’s from his dad, which makes him smile from ear to ear and cuddle deeper into her embrace.

She types.

-Are you high? And done (for the second part)

-No more than usual, no. And thanks (for the second part)

 _Okkkkkaaaayyyyy_. They both stare at their phones. The contact name on top showing ‘online’ doesn’t change to ‘typing…’ for a while.

-What are you guys doing?

Ok. Easier. Normal.

-Watching BSG

-?

-Battlestar Galactica. Shame on you. You’re a nerd’s father. Another nerd’s best friend. Both say hi btw

-Say hi back. Any good?

-I like it. More than Star Trek. Don’t tell Johnny

Oh, he will.

-I’ll think about it

-You do that. While you’re at it, think about me having a recording of you saying you hate the new Star Wars movies

He’s fucked. His son is probably the only Star Wars fan in the world who thinks episodes one, two and three are the best backstory ever made for a franchise.

-Deal

-God, you’re easy

-I’m not EASY. You’re just a pain in the ass. With evidence against me

-True. And TRUE. And I have more

-I KNOW

-Just saying

-Fine, I won’t tell him. Weren’t you guys watching SD9 or something?

Julia laughs. Yeah, when they get back home he’s gonna have a lifetime worth of homework.

-DS9. As in Deep Space Nine. We’re alternating. Max insists on expanding Astrid’s nerdy education

-Fuck. Am I going to have to watch all that?

-Fuck’s right

Quinn sighs, grinning. He’s just started allowing himself to imagine what life will be like when he gets home. He doesn’t have real plans yet, seeing as it’s only been about an hour since he got back to his room. It’ll take some time. Lots of time, probably. He has a lot of catching up to do. And for Johnny, he will.

-Did you guys eat? Order in or something?

Julia looks at his message and her brow furrows in puzzlement. Is he just making conversation? Is he hungry?

-Nope. I cooked. Mushroom casserole with crust. Remember?

He swallows the excess saliva flooding his mouth. He does. And he also realizes he’s skipped dinner. Before he can type a reply, another message bubble appears.

-Want some?

-Fuck YEAH. You even have to ask?

Julia laughs. It’s not his _most_ favourite, but it’s very close.

-I’ll pack some for Max to bring over

Quinn looks at her message. It’s been a lengthy round of small talk. And high school has been over for decades now. Setting aside the fact that all he wants to do is just keep messaging, dissolving into the best and the warmest feeling he’s had in a long time, he sighs and opens the dialer.

“Fingers get cramped?” Julia laughs. He hears the TV in the background, the volume getting lower as she evidently walks out of the room. He feels bad taking her away from Johnny.

“Can I ask you for something?” spitting out the question before his guilt takes over and he changes his mind. She was here last night, long shift. And it was a bad one. He’s not even sure she’d slept during the day.

“You want me to come over instead of Max?”

God, he’d missed her. And this is why.

“Could you?”

“Sure, silly. But you’ll have to wait until I tuck in my ‘hot date’.” She takes his faint joyful laughter as a ‘yes’. At first she was a little heartbroken seeing him and Johnny together, watching them falling in love with each other, as if the eight and a half years of Johnny’s life never happened. It used to feel bittersweet. Now it’s just sweet.

“I miss him so much, Jule. All the time. He’s just…”

“... _fucking incredible?_ ”

He laughs. “Fucking incredible.”

“He’s your son,” she says softly. _He’s YOUR son_ , he thinks. “I’ll see you soon, alright? Want me to smuggle in anything else?”

“You got any beer there?”

Julia laughs. “What do _you_ think? It’s _Astrid’s_ house. There are like four different kinds in the fridge. Craving any brand in particular?”

He smiles. Astrid. Right. He should have known. “Whichever you prefer.”

She smirks. “So… dinner _and_ drinks?”

“Objections?” He winces, for the first time realizing how it sounds and looks.

“Nope. But I _will_ have to go over your recent meds list.”

Quinn flips to his back. He wants to say something. He wants to keep talking. And he can’t stop grinning like a moron.

“Jule, drive safely, ok?”

“You’re _weird_. You’re freaking me out! Maybe I’ll send Max instead.”

He snorts a chuckle. “I’ll see you soon.”

Julia hangs up and stares at her phone, still trying to make sense of what just happened. Did _anything_ just happen? She shakes her head and realizes that a smile is still stuck on her face. She rolls her eyes when her phone buzzes again. Of course it’s not over.

-I’ve always been weird. Right?

She considers it, tilting her head from side to side.

-Right. But today earns you an Olympic medal

-Good thing?

-We’ll see

Astrid walks in, opening her fridge door and grabbing a bottle of Spaten Oktoberfest.

“What are _you_ smiling about?” she asks Julia.

“Um… nothing. I think I’ll go to the hospital tonight instead of Max. Would that be ok? I know it’s two nights in a row. But Max will be here.” She feels bad when she asks them to watch Johnny, despite them telling her repeatedly that it’s the highlight of their day, if not their lives.

Astrid ignores her apologetic silliness and raises an eyebrow. “Huh.”

Julia huffs. “No. No _huh_. I guess he wants to talk about something.”

Oh, Astrid knows he does. She also knows about what.

“Jules, you’re grinning like a smitten fifteen-year-old.”

“Oh, don’t start again.”

“Why not?” Astrid protests. She won’t be shut down by _both_ of them in one day.

“Because you’re a nag,” Julia laughs, passing her by as she walks back to the living room.

“Well, you’re an _idiot_ ,” Astrid yells after her and takes a large sip from her beer, smiling to herself. “You’re both idiots,” she adds later in a lower voice, basically talking to herself at this point. “And I need to get a hobby.”

  


**10:22PM**

The door to his room opens. Quinn puts down his book and takes off his reading glasses, expecting to see Julia. He sees her alright, but not before Johnny flies across the room and crashes into him. Knocked over on his bed, he struggles to sit up and pulls his son onto his lap, laughing and coughing as the two little arms around his neck squeeze just a tad too hard.

Before he has a chance to ask, Julia comes closer and gives him a peck on the cheek, running her fingers through Johnny’s hair.

“Max dropped us off. This little pain in the butt got all jealous that I get to see you two nights in a row, while _his royal highness_ barely got three hours. Max will take him back to Astrid’s once you guys, and I quote, _‘say goodnight properly, like you should every night’_ , because, apparently, ‘ _it’s not fair that dad can’t tuck him in like I do. So he wants to at least say goodnight’_.”

Quinn puts a palm over his son's head and kisses his forehead. “I agree,” he smiles into the blue glow of Johnny’s eyes.

“Why can’t I stay here with mom?” Johnny asks, tugging on his father’s pajama top.

Quinn holds him tighter. “You know why.”

“Because you get bad dreams?”

“ _That_. And because I want you to get a good night sleep in a normal bed, so you’re rested enough for tomorrow.”

“For when I come over in the morning?” Johnny beams.

“Yep. I just have one PT session tomorrow and some tests. We can spend most of the day together.”

Johnny nods and sighs, both sad that he has to go and excited about the prospect of tomorrow. He tucks his face under his father’s chin and inhales deeply. He needs just a little longer. Quinn’s fingers softly tickle the back of his neck.

“Done sniffing me?”

Johnny draws another lungful and shakes his head. He’ll _never_ be done. He wants to go home taking his father with him, as much as he can, _anything_ he can. Quinn laughs, then closes his eyes. Because that’s what _he_ can never have enough of - his child needing him this much.

Johnny stretches his slim arms around his father’s torso, throwing his head back so that he can look at him. He’s so close now that in order to do this his chin is on Quinn’s chest. He’s whispering every kind of goodnight wish he’s ever heard, and some that he just made up on his way over, including all kinds of ideas for the dreams he wants his father to have instead of his bad ones. Quinn’s face is a mere inch from his son’s, his smile frozen from fighting back tears, knowing if he moves one facial muscle he’ll break. He cradles his child's head in the palm of his hand, thinking how it all fits in there, and he knows he can never have a dream more beautiful than this one. He’s in love with every eyelash around those kind blue eyes, with every tiny freckle on this little nose, with every finger and every toe of his boy. He’s loved him and missed him every day of the last eight and a half years. And he’s the only dream in his life that ever came true.

“I love you,” he whispers, hiding his face in his son’s hair. “So damn much.”

Johnny snorts a happy giggle. “Love you too, Dad.”

The knot in Julia’s throat makes it hard to breathe. In the four years they were together they’d never said those words to each other. They’d loved each other every minute of every day. And they laughed about never saying it, never needing to. Johnny and Peter say it to each other on a nearly hourly basis. And it never seems to lose its meaning.

She looks at the father of her child holding their son, wishing him goodnight, unable to release him from his arms, and she wonders why that was, why the two of them never felt the need to just say it. Because she does now. For a whole bunch of different reasons and despite many reasons why she never will. Busying herself with unpacking the food and the drinks unto the table, she smiles: she’s loved this man since she was twenty four years old, in many ways she never stopped, and probably never will.

She’ll never get the complexity of his feelings for Carrie, nor hers for him, for that matter. But then, she’s not meant to. All she wants is for the two motherfuckers to take their heads out of their asses and own up to what they mean for each other. She wants both of them in her life and she wants them together. There’s a weird pinch right under her ribcage when she imagines that. It sends waves of unfamiliar sensation to the very pit of her stomach, making something inside of her squirm and twitch. Taking a deep breath, Julia just pushes it away.

Max comes to take Johnny home, and they both say goodnight. Julia’s back is still to Quinn as she’s waving them goodbye, when she feels his hands on her upper arms softly turning her around. Before she gets a chance to realize what’s happening, he draws her in and holds her so tight that for a moment she can’t breathe.

“Hey.” Concerned, she looks up. “What’s wrong?”

He shakes his head and presses her face back into his chest, keeping his hand on top of it. She can feel him breathing into her hair, loud and labored.

“Jules, you stubborn silly moron…” He’s shaking.

“Peter, what happened?”

He exhales loudly, muffling a bitter chuckle. “ _You_ happened, you idiot. You and your fucking dumb stunt, taking on the CIA to save my sorry ass.”

Julia sighs with relief and laughs, lifting her head and looking at him. “Oh… _that_.” For a moment she wonders if she should feel like she’s been busted. Because she doesn't. The truth is, she hasn’t thought about that day in a long time, as if it happened a lifetime ago.

He’s not laughing, not even smiling. “Don’t you _ever_ do anything like that ever again.”

She shrugs her shoulder. “Why not? _You_ would. For me, for Carrie, for _anyone_. Go ahead, try to tell me I’m wrong.” She squints her eyes, giving him a daring stare.

Quinn thinks about Carrie making the same point. About how he responded, suggesting it wasn’t so clear. Did he just say that to put her mind at ease? Did it work? He knows with Julia it wouldn’t, not in a million years. She’d throw her usual ‘bullshit’ at him and laugh in his face. And she’d be right.

But that’s not the point, is it? He presses his lips to her forehead, feeling himself go numb all over. Just thinking about what she’s done, the repercussions of it, makes him sick again. He’s both grateful to her, more so than he could ever tell her, and terrified to the point of wanting to shake her and scream at her until she understands how little his life would mean to him if anything happened to her or Johnny.

“You’re stupid,” he whispers, gathering her into his arms again, feeling and knowing that he’s not enough to shield her. “You’re so goddamn stupid and crazy. And I fucking don’t know what I ever did to deserve you.” He feels the smile spreading over her face and he knows what’s coming. Julia can’t take sentimental moments without making some silly joke. He shakes his head. “Don’t you dare, Jule. Not now,” he warns her.

He’s so shook up, that she bites her tongue for once and just lets him hold her. He keeps whispering to her. After a while it becomes nothing more than a scrambled mess of words that he seems unable to stop. Julia is trying to make sense of it all, at least some of it - it’s something she used to do when he’d get like this in the past. Sometimes, he’d just become too emotional and his ability to express himself would shut down, leaving bits and pieces of whatever overwhelmed him. She used to adore it. And now she does again. That is until she finally manages to make out what he’s trying to say - that it’s his fault, that he should have let her go, live her life, stay away like he planned to. Her head snaps from under his hand, and her eyes bore into his.

“I swear to God, Peter, you say that to me again and I’ll fucking kill you myself,” she hisses without a hint of a smile.

He’s taken aback at first, startled by the fierceness in her voice, the sudden change in her expression. “I never wanted this for you,” he tries to explain what he meant.

“Yeah, well, guess what? _I_ never wanted this for _you_ . _Any_ of this. For years, _all_ those years, every time I would think you’re out there, still going from one mission to another, coming home… not even _home_ , probably… some crappy motel room… _alone_ . Going through what I watched you go through, but on your _own…_ It would _break_ me. _Every single time_ . The letters you sent? Asking for Johnny’s pictures? They were the only way I knew you were still alive. I never changed my address or my phone number, and it wasn’t because _you_ couldn’t let me go. It was because _I_ couldn’t live with the thought of you needing someone one day and not being able to find me.”

“Jules, I didn’t mean…”

She interrupts him, her voice getting even harsher. “But you _did_ . You think you can take it and nobody else should have to. Well guess what? You’re not the only one willing to put everything on the line for people you care about. And guess what _else_ ? Being on the receiving end of it _sucks_ . All this time I had to live knowing what you gave up for me and Johnny to have our lives. For _years_ , Peter. So, _suck it up_ . You get to live knowing somebody risked their life to save _yours_ for once.”

He feels the smile creeping in, wondering if she’s going to break something on his head if he laughs now, but he can’t help it.

“So… that was… revenge?” He winces, ready for her to punch him.

Julia takes a lungful of air, her eyes opening wide, her expression a mix of awe and disbelief. She could strangle him now for turning it into a joke like that. But then, she knows the feeling. She wrote the book on dodging emotionally overwhelming moments by laughing them off. She swears under her breath and deflates with a loud wheezing sound.

“Yeah, you dumbass, that was _revenge_ ,” she says in a softer voice. “And you never answered my question. Actually, you know what? Don’t _bother_ . I _know_ you would have done the same for me, for _anyone_ . And you _did_ . Every day for the last fifteen years. You wanna think that your life’s not worth shit, you go ahead and do that. But leave _me_ out of it. And while you’re at it, take your fucking head out of your ass, and look around. You’re surrounded by people who love you, who would dread losing you. Stop trying to die for them and try _living_ for them.”

She’s trying to stop her thoughts from scattering all over the place, losing any logical order in the face of everything she’s feeling right now. She looks straight at him.

“They were right, you know? It _was_ the right thing. To wake you up. And I _know_ you would have wanted them to. Carrie… she looked like she was dying inside in that room. But she _knew_ it had to be done. And she was so brave. And I was…” her voice breaks. “... selfish. I didn’t care about what you wanted or how many lives it would save. All I could think about was that I couldn’t stand by and watch anymore, what that world did to you. And that you had a son, who hadn’t even met you, but whose whole world revolved around how much he worshiped you. He’d just lost you and found out you were alive again. When we were on that plane, on our way over here, all I could feel was…” She keeps talking but nothing can get past her tear-shut throat anymore.

“Jules… _Jules_ …” Quinn presses a hand to her mouth. All he can see now are her teary eyes, blinking at him with everything else she wanted to say, everything she’s feeling, all she’s been through. “I know. I _know_. I shouldn’t have said that. Oh Jesus...” He pulls her back against him.

It’s the first time he actually stops to think about it, to imagine what she must have felt, watching him die on TV, grabbing Johnny and flying here, thinking she was going to bury him. Even the thought of how he would have felt if the roles were reversed makes him see black, his heart bursting into pieces in his chest.

She quiets down in his arms. Her breathing becomes slower, calmer. He’s stroking her head, overwhelmed by the tenderness of his own touch. In his head, to this day, she’s everything that’s still good and pure about this world. Years after leaving her, he’d remind himself of that, when he’d forget what it was that he was still fighting for. He didn’t just want to have a family, to have children - he wanted to have _her_ children. He wanted to be surrounded by her and parts of her for the rest of his life. Because he didn’t just love her, he _admired_ her. Every day, she astounded him, with her blunt honesty and her simple way of finding beauty and something worthy of her love in almost everything and everyone.

Eight weeks ago wasn't the first time she'd saved him. She’d done it for years, over and over. And she’d done it again today, just hours ago, when she’d given him the strength to finally walk away from a life that had become nothing but a prelude to an inevitable death.

He leans his head down, so he can reach her ear. He’d forgotten how small she was, how fragile.

“Yes, Jules, I would. Do the same for you,” he finally answers her question in a soft whisper. “And _shut up_. You’re the least selfish person I know. And I’m the luckiest dumbass alive for having you in my life. You and Johnny both.”

Julia smiles. “You’re forgiven. For _now_.”

“Bullshit,” he laughs.

“Say what?”

He smirks. “You were never really mad at me.”

“Well, I am _now_. For using my ‘bullshit’ against me.”

He wrinkles his nose, the same way she usually does, trying to imitate her voice even harder. “ _Bullshit_.”

Julia sighs - there’s no winning when he gets like this, she knows. She gives up. “Fine. _Fine_ . I’m not _mad_ at you. But for the record, _next time_ , saying ‘thanks for saving my sorry ass’ is enough.”

“Got it,” he starts, then grabs her chin and makes her look at him. “ _Next time???_ No _next time_! You’re not pulling this crap again. EVER. Promise me. Right now.”

She gives him a defiant stare. “I ain’t promising you shit, you crazy badass motherfucker. But tell you what - you stop dying or being in a coma, and you got yourself a deal.”

“Actually…” He reaches over to the table, grabs two bottles of beer, popping both open and handing her one. “That’s the plan.”

“The _plan_ …” Julia squints her eyes. “You have a plan that involves _no longer d_ _ying_?”

He clicks the neck of his bottle to hers, one arm still around her. “Yep.”

“I like it. Is there more to it? Care to share?”

“Depends. You free tonight?”

She winks. “For you - never. _Spill_ already.”

Quinn shakes his head at her. The half circle of his arm around her waist tightens fast and she gasps when he just picks her up with one hand, carries her to the armchair and lowers her in.

“Sit and be quiet.” Before moving away, he drops one last kiss on the top of her head. Then picks up the box with the casserole and jumps on his bed, crossing his legs underneath him and popping the lid open. “I can spill _and_ eat, right?”

  


He tells her everything - starting from what he learnt from Dr Emory and ending with him confronting Dar Adal and almost shoving him off the 11th floor. He’s always been honest with her, but never this completely forthcoming. There were many things that he wanted to tell her but never could. Having her here, now, telling her not just how it all went down, but also everything he can remember thinking and feeling, even the darkest of his thoughts and realizations, feels like stumbling upon a creek in a desert. He keeps going back and forth, remembering and adding more, words just spilling out of him in an endless stream, as if a dam has been breached somewhere.

When he’s done talking, he looks at Julia. He’s not sure what he expects her to say, or if he even wants her to say _anything_. She’s as pale as the walls of his hospital room, her eyes teary. She gets up, walks over and sits on the edge of his bed, tucking one leg underneath her.

“And I’m the stupid one…” she mutters, slightly admonishing, stroking his back as he turns to his side, forming half a circle around her. “You almost shoved the head of Special Ops to his death and threw yourself down with him, and _I’m_ supposed to be the moron.”

“Ah. But I _didn’t_.” He tries to cheer her up.

“Johnny it’s not even _remotely_ funny. And it’s not a competition in silliness, either.”

“But it _could_ be.” He scoots down a little and wraps an arm around her folded leg, pressing the side of his head to her knee. An impish smile crawls from the corners of his eyes all the way to his mouth. “You just called me Johnny, again. I could never figure it out.”

“Figure out what?”

“When you would call me what and why. Even before I left, you used to call me Johnny, Peter, Quinn, crazy badass motherfucker. I never figured out which name meant what.”

She smiles, putting a hand over his head. “You know… I don’t think there was ever a particular rhyme or reason to any of it. Well, except for the ‘crazy badass motherfucker’. That’s just who you are, silly, face it.” She tickles his neck and laughs when he traps her fingers between his jaw and his shoulder.

Quinn nods absentmindedly. For a while he just lies there, his body curled around her, his fingers aimlessly scratching her shin and drawing lines, dots, letters and geometric shapes on the sleeve of her pants. Gradually, the contented smile fades and he looks up at her face.

“Jule?” She arches both eyebrows in a ‘what?’. “What I said… about why I didn’t kill Dar…” He stares deeply into her eyes. “We never talked about it, you and I.”

Julia sighs, sliding her hand under his palm on her leg and waiting for his fingers to close around it. “Are you asking me if I knew what your work involved? Of _course_ I did.”

“No, I know _that_. That’s not what I meant.”

“What then?”

He tries to swallow, his throat dry from the feeling of dread. “Was that what you thought of me? Even when we were together? Was that who you thought I was? _What_ I was?” He can’t even bring himself to say it.

She recalls what he told her about his last minutes with Dar, and her face twitches. “A _killer_ ??? Are you asking if I thought the man I was in love with, planned to have a _family_ with, had a _child_ with, was nothing but a _killer_?”

“No…” When she puts it like that, it knocks off a thousand-pound rock weighing down on his heart. He drags her hand closer to his face and kisses the back of her wrist. “But you did use it against Dar, right?”

Julia’s eyes narrow. “So?”

“So… you did? Or…?”

“Yeah, I did. Wouldn’t _you_?”

Confused, Quinn furrows his brow. “What do you mean?”

“I _mean_ \- Dar knew what you were capable of. He was the one who trained you. He was your handler. He knew how protective you were of me and Johnny an d that you would kill him for hurting me, _us_ , be that eight years ago or twenty. So I used it.”

He nods, slowly wrapping his mind around it. Julia is a cop. She knows how to use what she has on people to get what she needs, what she needs them to do. That’s what she did with Dar. _Dar_ already knew what he was capable of. That was explanation enough. Or was it?

“But you knew that too, Jules. That I would kill him if I found out.”

She sighs. “Peter, spit it out.”

“Spit what out?”

“What you really want to ask. What really bothers you. Because I _hope_ you don’t think I lived with you, slept next to you for four years, and didn’t know what you were capable of doing to someone who’d hurt the people you loved.”

“Jules…” He averts his eyes and turns his head, until his face is nuzzled between her kneecap and the mattress.

“Nononononono…” Julia snorts, sliding her hand into his hair and tugging on it until he emerges again. “You asked. You can’t take it back now. Look, obviously it bothers you.”

Quinn draws her hand closer again and presses it to the side of his face. She’s right - he knows what he _really_ wants to ask. But he’s not sure he can deal with the answer.

He slowly lifts his eyes to her face. His voice is strangled and barely audible when he finally speaks. “Were you afraid of me? Are you now? For you? For Johnny?”

The silence that follows is like a dark, bottomless pit. It’s hollow, but not empty.

For Julia, the silence is filled with words she once thought she’d never have to give voice to, something she thought was mutually understood. Now those words are staring back at her, laughing. Because they weren’t just young and naive, were they? They were fools. They thought they could stay in their little bubble forever, him thinking he could spare her the pain of finding out what his world was really like, her thinking that loving him was enough to one day make it all go away. She’s not foolish enough to believe that talking about it back then would have changed the outcome. But maybe it would have made them face it sooner, be prepared. Maybe they wouldn’t have been caught with their guard down when his life finally caught up with them, leaving her beaten within an inch of her life, and driving them deeper into what he was trying to escape.

For Quinn, the silence is filled with the sense of finality that comes with knowing he’s just thrown himself on the sword of his worst fear. He'd given up his life time and time again to protect and to serve, only to now realize that he might have been a menace to those he cared about most. They were never safe with him, _from_ him. He’s not even sure if they are _now_. _Any_ of them. There was never _this_ world and _that_ world. There was _never_ a line separating what he did from what he was, because he’d let the one seep into the other. And he’d watched the people he loved pay the price.

Julia feels his fingers tighten around her hand. “You don’t have to answer.”

But she does. She _should_ have all those years ago. She should have made him face it, deal with it. Because it was never so much a question of being afraid _of_ him, but afraid _for_ him.

She frees her hand from his and places it on top of his head, then bends down and presses her lips to his temple.

“No,” she whispers, softly but firmly. And the conviction with which she says it leaves no doubt in his mind as to how serious she is. “Not then, not now, not for me and not for Johnny. Never.”

The gust of air escaping his mouth comes out with a muffled sob. She’s waiting for him to nod. When he finally does, she sits back up. She slides her hand back into his palm, squeezing hard. Quinn nods again, feeling the lump in his throat getting denser.

“You thought about it, though.”

“I did,” Julia admits. “Many times. I _knew_ what you did. I knew what it _took_ . The things you screamed in your sleep, your nightmares… I still have chills when I remember them. The way you’d fight me off when I’d try to calm you down… there was so much rage that you kept bottled up. Did I wonder if you were capable of harming me, our children, if that rage were to come unleashed? Yeah, I did. But every time I asked myself that question, I just knew the answer - you could _never_ hurt me. Or Johnny. Or _anyone_ you cared about.”

Quinn looks up, trying to smile, but feeling the corners of his mouth curling down instead. He believes her. And he knows _she_ believes it. But she’s wrong. Because she doesn’t know how far it went. He was never completely honest with her. It wasn’t just what he did when he was away on missions, and it wasn’t just in his dreams that his rage would tear through him. And now, as if Pandora’s box of his life has been yanked open now, he knows he can’t close it until all the truth is out. There’s no statute of limitations on murder. But then, the reason he never told her wasn’t because he was afraid she’d report him.

“I didn’t just kill ‘on the books’, Jule.”

He looks at her, both terrified and exhilarated. If she reports him, if she gets up and leaves, he can live with it. And maybe there’s a part of him wants her to. He expects her expression to change, the soft glow in her eyes to be replaced with horror, condemnation, disgust. But it doesn’t. Instead, they fill with tears. Julia blinks them away and looks down at him, nodding slowly.

“I know, Peter.”

His eyes widen and his breath hitches. Cold shivers run up and down his spine, but only for a moment. Because then it all comes crashing down. She’s _always_ known, all those years. He never told her because he wanted to spare her being torn between him and her oath. But she’d made that choice long ago.

And it turns out she wasn’t alone.

Julia tells him about the cold case investigation Stevenson was running into his parent’s murder. How Andrew had reopened it the day after he’d told her about their deaths. She also tells him how on the night he’d come home and told her he’d changed his name, she’d realized they would never find the shooters. And she knew why.

When she tells him about being summoned to ID her attacker, he goes numb with horror all over. And it’s not about her signing a false statement, not that Stevenson knew it and backed her up. It’s what she tells him she felt while standing in the medical examiner's office that shatters him: how all she could see was the pain he was left to live with, the rage, the loneliness; how she wanted to find him, hold him again, tell him she won’t let this world destroy what’s left of him. She’s right, and he feels that same rage flooding every cell of his body again, remembering how _he_ felt when he finally found the man who attacked her. Julia’s words ring in his ears: _a crushed finger for every crushed dream_. That’s what it was, what he did, why he did it. She was right to feel that he perished along with that man. In a way, he’d always known it - that was the day he really died, shedded the last of his hopes, left behind the last of his dreams.

He looks at her, sitting on his bed, holding his hand and telling him all this - she’s calm, rational, resolute. Was he ever the one who protected _her_?

As if reading his mind, Julia gives him a sad half smile. “Peter, I was in _love_ with you, b ut I wasn’t _stupid_ . And I _definitely_ wasn’t suicidal. If I thought, even for a moment, that you were capable of hurting me, our future children, I would have left. And I certainly wouldn’t be here today, bringing Johnny back into your life.”

Quinn looks up, still bewildered, shaking his head. How can she be so sure? He’s not even sure himself.

“Jules, the shooters from the diner… _Today_ , I probably wouldn’t have killed them - I would’ve turned them in. But that guy.. The guy who beat you…” his vision goes black. “I _would_ . Even today. I would probably do _worse_.”

“And that proves what, exactly? You asked me if I was ever afraid of you. The answer is no. And I hope you know better than to assume I’d lie to you about something like that.”

He says nothing, just lying there, holding her hand, staring into an invisible point on the opposite wall. When Julia chuckles all of a sudden and scratches the inside of his palm to get his attention, he shifts his eyes to her face and gives her a quizzical, almost admonishing stare.

“You know what Johnny’s favourite book is, right?” she asks, smiling wider.

Easy. It was one of the first things Johnny ever told him, that same morning, after waking up in his arms in Julia’s hospital room, while brushing his teeth. “You ever read the ‘I, Robot’ collection?” he asked, slurring adorably around the toothbrush in his mouth. Quinn said yes, a long time ago, when he was about Johnny’s age, maybe a little older. He used to be a sucker for sci-fi growing up. Azimov in particular. Beaming, Johnny had informed him then that it was his favourite book to date. And, while waiting for Max and watching Julia sleep, snuggling back into the hospital armchair, that was the first real conversation they ever had.

Quinn swears under his breath, beginning to see where she’s going with this, and lifts a finger to her face.

“ _Fuck_ no, Jules! You’re _not_ applying the three laws of robotics to me.”

“Ah, but I _am_ .” Julia is laughing now, even more amused with the thought. _That_ , and seeing him thaw at the mere thought of his son. “ And it’s just the one law, really. The _first_ one. You’d tear yourself apart before you’d lay one finger on me, or Johnny, or anyone you love. You’re _wired_ like that.”

He grins, shaking his head. _A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm._ He’s not _particularly_ thrilled about being compared to a robot, but he can’t argue with the logic. And he knows it’s the truth. He can be a volatile raging fireball, but he would burn inwards until he’s nothing but a pile of ashes before he’d let it touch anyone he loves.

He lifts his eyes to her smiling face and releases the breath he's been holding all this time. The sudden wave of relief and joy is so powerful, that he barely stops himself from knocking her down on the bed, laughing and kissing her, feeling her close to him. But mostly, being that man again, being Johnny, happy and silly, forgetting about the ugliness of his reality, _loving_ this life, this _world_ , despite everything he’s seen and done, just for having her in it.

And then he gasps, very softly, because he sees her lowering her eyes, looking away, blushing under his intense stare. He sees her chest rise and fall heavily, and, like all those years ago, he feels his toes curling, every inch of him tingling and burning.

“Fuck, Jules…” he whispers, tugging on her hand, trying to pull her closer.

Julia takes a deep breath and manages a carefree smile. “Time to sleep.” She stretches up and turns off the lamp above his bed. She gets up to move back to her armchair, but he doesn’t release her hand. “C’mon, Peter. It’s past two AM. You might as well start your new life well rested. I’m not going anywhere.”

He doesn’t object when she adjusts his pillow and monitor wires, tucking him in. Reluctantly, he lets go of her hand. What was he thinking? It’s been eight and a half years. She’s not here because she doesn’t have a life of her own, she’s made _that_ clear. She’s here because that’s who she is, what she’s always been to him. He’ll be released in a week or two, go back home. And so will she. Things will be different, he’ll see her all the time, when he comes to pick up Johnny. She’ll always care about him, he knows that now. In many ways, he’s always known that. Julia is like a Marine - she leaves no man behind. But it ends there. They’ve both lost what they had many years ago. And there’s no going back.

“Can you just stay a bit? Sit with me?” He’s thankful for the room being pitch dark. He can control his voice, but he can’t stop the tears from streaming down his face.

“Sure.”

He can feel her next to him again, her hand rubbing his back. He turns to his side and wraps his body in half a circle around her.

“Peter,” she says, following a long silence.

“Mmm?”

Julia’s hand finds his face and he can feel her wiping his tears. He lets her. He never really fooled himself into thinking she wouldn’t know he was crying.

“I was never afraid of you, it’s true, even knowing what you were capable of. That doesn’t mean it didn’t bother me. It still does. I watched you slowly dying inside, bits of you lost after every mission. You did kill all those people. And you’re _still_ thinking about killing the man who attacked me all over again.”

He nods. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that maybe now that you’re thinking about getting out, starting a new life… well, it’s something you should probably work on. I think it’s always been your go-to response: someone hurts the people you love, you hurt them back, even kill them. And you have the means to make it happen. For what it’s worth, I think it’s wrong. And I think you’re killing yourself in the process. And I don’t want to see you do that to yourself, ever again.”

He just lies there, saying nothing, for a long time, but she can feel the tears on his lips, as his mouth leaves trails of soft lingering kisses along her fingers before finally stopping inside her palm.

“I love you,” he whispers.

He just says it. Maybe because it’s what he’s been wanting to say all along, ever since he messaged her and asked her to come over. Maybe because he never really stopped loving her, not in the way that matters. He’s not sure if she said anything in return, or if she even heard him. And he’s not expecting her to say anything in response. But it’s the last thing in his Pandora’s box. And now that it’s out, now that it’s all out, there might finally be a chance for hope. For a new life. With or without her, he doesn’t know, and, in this moment, it doesn’t matter.

Soon enough his mind is a rollercoaster, rising and falling, a kaleidoscope, images coming into his line of sight and fading away again. As he drifts off, the last thing he remembers is falling asleep almost ten years ago, having just changed his name, fooling himself into believing that now he would be able to put the past behind him. But it really isn’t about rewriting your story, righting a wrong. You have to face and accept your past to move forward. And it’s not about losing and finding the people in your life, how they make you feel, what they think of you. In the end, it should probably be about holding onto _yourself,_ your entire self. And, for the first time since he was sixteen years old, he dares to think that maybe, just maybe, he can.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For our friends Gnomecat and Violiko. It's not easy to face this reality, but you make it tolerable. Love


	14. Day One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NikitaSunshine, what do you know... It's getting there. And if I don't die before writing that last conversation, it might actually be over soon. Hmmmm... we need to start thinking of a new one. And to think, you didn't even kick my ass that much this time. Yay-fucking-yay!
> 
> Gnomecat and Violiko, this one is AKA "The One With The Kiss".
> 
> Love to all of you!

**The following day, aka Day One, 09:45**

Even before Quinn opens his eyes the following morning, the events of last night come like a waterfall, washing over him, sorrow mixing with joy. _Day one_ , he thinks, and just like that he’s tingling with anticipation and wistfulness. _I’m just gonna fuck it up again, aren’t I?_ he thinks next, almost expecting to picture all of his new found hopes crumbling down and turning to ashes, but finding himself even more thrilled at the mere thought of a challenge.

His eyelids feel puffy, throbbing. He doesn’t remember the last time he cried himself to sleep. Or the last time he wanted to, but couldn’t. He’s still curled on his side, but the place next to him is empty, and so is his hand. He figures Julia went back to sleep in the armchair once he dozed off. He’s trying to recall if he had any nightmares last night. Usually he can remember, at least some. But no, there’s nothing now. Did he just sleep through the night?

He finally opens his eyes, expecting to see Julia still sleeping. She’s not there. Instead, he sees Astrid in the armchair with Johnny cuddled at her side, their heads close together as they appear to be watching something on Astrid’s iPad, each wearing one earbud of the same set of earphones.

Quinn smiles, careful not to move, stealing a moment to just look at them. He’s wondering how long he slept - Astrid never gets here before nine o’clock.

Johnny sees him awake first. His smile lights up the room brighter than the glow of the morning sun. Quinn barely has time to open his arms, and his son is already on the bed, throwing himself into his embrace. Knocked onto his back, he laughs with more delight and joy than he can remember feeling in a long time. He gathers Johnny on top of himself, tickling him mercilessly and messing up his hair.

“Mine. _All mine_ ,” he growls, drawing an even tighter circle around the squirming and giggling happiness on top of his chest, scooping every bit of him as close as he can. Because he _is_ . The only thing in the world that truly _is his_ , a _part_ of him, something he can never - _will never_ \- lose again.

Breathless from shrieking and giggling, Johnny just nods, his head moving up and down, trapped between his father’s body and his palm. And he can feel the tremble of his father’s delighted laughter, sending new waves of elation all over him. He crawls higher up for a wrinkled nose rub. It’s a family trait, he knows now. He’s not sure who started it, or when. But that’s what they all seem to do when they are this happy.

Leaving one hand on Johnny’s head, Quinn releases his grip around him and bends his other arm behind his own neck, smiling as he watches Johnny lift himself on his elbows, prop his chin between his palms and bend his knees, swinging his feet in the air. _Day one_ , he thinks again. And somehow, the weight of his son’s body on top of his chest makes everything inside of it feel even lighter.

“Morning, snuggle-bug,” he snickers.

Johnny smirks and snorts a little at his new nickname, “Morning, Dad.” For a while they just stare at each other, blue into blue. Then Johnny tilts his head sideways, grinning wider. “Ready for breakfast? You should go wash up and brush your teeth. ‘Cause mom packed a whole box for you.”

“Did she now?” He doesn’t know what it is and he doesn’t care. Just the memory of nearly licking the mushroom casserole box last night makes his mouth water so hard that he needs to swallow.

Johnny nods vigorously. “Yep. She says it’s your favourite. Mine, too, by the way.”

Quinn’s stomach makes a loud and happy purring sound. He only has _one_ favourite. For years he’s been ordering it in every diner and coffee shop he stepped foot in on every continent. He even attempted to make it himself once. Nothing ever came close. Julia makes the best french toast in the world. And he’ll punch anyone who dares to claim otherwise.

Sensing his father being torn between him and his breakfast, Johnny slides off of him and nudges him to get up. That does it. Within seconds Quinn is on his feet, unplugging the monitor wires and nearly sprinting towards the bathroom. He stops in his tracks twice: once - to drop a loud good morning kiss on the top of Astrid’s head, and the second time - to snatch the note glued to the lid of a huge plastic box on the table.

He shakes his head and laughs: _“Happy first day of the rest of your life, silly. The maple syrup is in Johnny’s bag.”_

That settles it: _day one - perfect._

 

**11:43**

Once the doctors rounds are over, Quinn is sent to have another echocardiography, then another stress test. He’s given good news on both and is told that he’ll most likely be released by the end of next week.

Johnny, who’s been tugging along everywhere his father went, is jumping with excitement at the prospect of the both of them finally going home. He can’t wait to show him his room, his comic book collection, all of his posters and action figures, all of his favorite movies and series, his school, his grades charts - everything. Astrid promises to come and visit as well, which makes it even better! And he knows Max and Carrie live just about two hours away, so, despite being a little sad to leave here, he’s mostly excited to move his newly found weird family back home.

After leaving the Heart Institute, they stop by Neurology, where Quinn has another nerve conduction study. He doesn’t need to see the results to know that his peripheral neuropathy is as good as gone. To prove it, he walks in carrying Johnny under his left arm. The neurologist raises an eyebrow, smiles, says ‘nice try’, but sticks the probes into his forearm muscles nevertheless.

His Ophthalmologist is the only one who seems to be concerned, and with good reason. Not only is his eyesight not improving, it’s actually getting worse. He might need to wear glasses or contacts all the time soon. The worst part of it is that no one really knows why it’s happening and whether the deterioration will stop. The prospect of ending up blind sends chills down Quinn’s spine. He hopes Johnny doesn’t understand what his doctor is saying, wearing all kinds of funny test glasses to try to distract him. They also take selfies on Johnny’s phone and send them to the new whatsapp group that Carrie started about two weeks ago.

It was originally called “The Gang”. But that didn’t last long. Within two hours Max had it renamed to “The Fellowship”, which brought on a long and enthusiastic discussion about The Lord of The Rings, initiated by Quinn and involving pretty much everyone except Carrie who, apparently, hadn’t even watched the movies. The next day the name was changed to “The Obsidian Order” which, in turn, had to be explained to both Carrie _and_ Quinn, who never watched Star Trek. Seeing how the Obsidian Order was the Cardassian CIA, it almost stuck. In the end, though, they settled on “The High Council”, Johnny’s idea this time, omitting the Klingon part which, despite being Star Trek as well, just sounded nice to everyone.

As they are on their way to the park to meet Astrid, they receive a picture of Carrie with a pint in her hand, shining glow in her eyes and a smile that could blind a man with _healthy_ eyesight. The caption says _“Wish you were all here. Quinn, best beer in the world indeed. Thanks. Btw, won’t be back to Germany till the day after tomorrow. Sorry. Unexpected delays.”_ Quinn feels a wave of sadness rolling over him. He’s been looking forward to their regular stroll around the hospital tonight. He has so much he wants to tell her. And he’s more than a little curious about her sudden mysterious adventures in Prague.

His PT session has been pushed to the late afternoon, which suits everyone just fine. They find Astrid at one of the tables in the park and gather around for a game of Go Fish. It’s a beautiful sunny day, not too hot. The cool summer breeze is a welcome distraction from the troubling news about his eyesight. Soon enough Quinn is laughing again, plunging back into the happy oblivion of _Day one_.

He tells Johnny and Astrid about the recent development, deliberately omitting the part about confronting Dar and basically everything surrounding it. But he tells them that once he’s released from the hospital, he’s going home. For good.

The only thing Quinn knows about what that means at this point is that home will be in Philly. Because this is where Johnny is. And he intends to build his life around his son’s. He’ll need to get a job, maybe go back to school, finish his pre-graduate degree, then maybe continue for more. He’s still not sure where and what he’ll study. But he has an idea. After all, he had that same idea since he was fourteen years old. For a moment, he wonders if there is such a thing as a blind engineer, but immediately pushes that thought to the back of his head. He’ll cross that bridge if and when he gets there. And, looking at Astrid and Johnny, thinking about Carrie, Max and Julia, for the first time in his life he knows he won’t be crossing it alone.

Apparently, deliberating about the many jobs he can do as a civilian can be tons of fun. Because soon enough, having forsaken the game, Astrid and Johnny do just that, laughing until they both get hiccups, making up stories to come with each job they have in mind. They usually end with him snapping and shooting someone or blowing something up. Or uncovering a conspiracy leading to everyone at his workplace getting arrested for their involvement with a terrorist cell. Quinn just shakes his head at them, squints his eyes and laughs. They are not wrong. And he really has no idea what he will do when he’s out.

_Day one - getting a little scary._

 

**14:27**

They are about to leave the park and head to the hospital cafeteria to have lunch, when Julia and Max surprise them with an unannounced visit, carrying a picnic basket. Neatly packed in German casserole dishes to keep warm, there’s a full lunch for everyone - fish and chips this time. Jumping in excitement with their stomachs gurgling in delightful anticipation, they all crowd around a single table.

Taking out a plastic box containing what appears to be a cut watermelon, Julia turns to Quinn. “Should I put it on the table now, or…?”

“Nah, we’ll serve it later.” He pulls on her hand until she’s sitting next to him.

“Fine. I just hope it’s still cold enough. Too hot outside.”

“Stop freaking out and eat,” Quinn laughs, taking on the job of filling everyone’s plates. He steals a piece of fish, stuffing the whole thing into his mouth, and collapses against the back of the bench. “Goddamn you, Jule. And I’m supposed to eat hospital food again after this?”

Johnny giggles. “Mom’s cooking is the best.”

“I _remember_.”

The truth is, she wasn’t always a good cook. In fact, when they first met, she couldn’t even make scrambled eggs. Soon enough he learnt that she was a tomboy who never stepped foot in her mother’s kitchen, systematically and deliberately skipping every single home ec class in her catholic school, and, in general, not able to be bothered with household chores. For the first week all they ate were his grilled cheese sandwiches and the occasional takeout. His first mission lasted almost a month. By the time he came back, Julia had thrown herself into turning their new apartment into a home with all the stubbornness and determination she had in her.

He was always a messy roommate, and the constant chaos never bothered her. But the place had to be sparkling clean. He remembers telling her not to worry about it, that he didn’t give a fuck about being fed three meals a day or having a bathroom so clean that you could operate on the floor. But after awhile, he stopped. Because he realized that it was the only thing keeping her sane when he was gone. It made her happy - feeding him, taking care of his clothes, of their home. She always had boxes of food in the freezer, ready for him to take when he’d be called away. He’d share it with his buddies in the group, and by the first night it would usually be all gone. He never minded being called the luckiest asshole in the bunch. Because he was.

“Sleep ok?” He hears Julia’s voice next to him, yanking him from the memory lane back into the present.

Johnny has wedged himself between Max and Astrid, chatting them both up about something called Rogue One.The most Quinn can gather is that it’s Star Wars, a story, according to Johnny, based solely on a single phrase from New Hope. Those are his son’s favorite topics of conversation: how someone can take one moment, one thought, and build a dream on top of it. And it fits too. Because this is what Johnny is - a dream, born out of his parents’ being young and delusional enough to believe they could beat the odds.

 _Not everyone’s fit to be a parent_ , Quinn hears his own voice in his head. He watches Johnny climb onto Max’s knee, flushed with excitement, eyes shining with delight at having found a kindred soul who seems to share all of his passions, and he feels the empty space between his own arms produce a pain that’s nearly physical. He misses his boy even when he’s sitting right across the table. Because _he is_ a parent. He _has_ to be. Even if his attempt at this new life ends up going up in smoke, he can’t fail at _this_.

“Peter?”

Slowly, he shifts his gaze to Julia. She’s sitting next to him, one leg tucked underneath her, the other bent high so that her foot rests on the bench with her plate balancing on her knee. She’s wearing a dark red t-shirt and a pair of light blue jeans, her hair gathered into a ponytail. She never cared for dressing up or putting on makeup. And she was always a messy eater. He smiles, seeing a smudge of ketchup on her chin, then reaches to wipe it clean with his thumb.

“Like a dead man,” he answers her original question. “I don’t even remember dozing off. You? Between the french toast and _this_ , did you sleep at all?”

Julia waves him off. “Pfft, yeah! You went out like a light. I stayed a bit, then crawled back to my chair and passed out in seconds. Almost slept through my morning alarm.”

Quinn leans back, taking a deep breath, then nods absentmindedly. Sometimes he has to remind himself that he’s at the hospital, and how he ended up here. Most of the time it feels like the longest vacation he’s ever been on. He’s surrounded by everyone he ever loved, all the people he said goodbye to just two months ago, being led to his public execution.

“I didn’t have any nightmares last night, did I?”

Julia smiles. “Nope. Did you start on Prazosin again?”

“Just this morning.”

“Wow.” She cocks her head to the side. “You’re really doing this, huh?”

“I think so, yeah.” When a shadow runs across her face, he lets out a bitter chuckle. “ _You_ seem... _unconvinced_.”

Julia considers it, then shakes her head. “It’s not me being unconvinced that you should be worried about. You know that, right? You’ve been down this road before, many times from what Astrid tells me. You know where it ends better than anyone.”

“This time is different.” Quinn steals a look at Johnny.

Following his eyes, Julia sighs. “I hope so. For you. _Both_ of you.”

“You don’t believe me…” Even before the words are out, he knows she has every right not to.

“Actually, I _do_ .” She puts more fish on his plate and sits back. “ But that's not the point - it shouldn’t be _me_ who believes you. You’re not quitting for me, or Johnny. At least I _hope_ you’re not.”

But he is. Because he needs a purpose, an anchor. She’s right, he _knows_ how it ends. That’s why he needs something to hold on to in _this_ world. And now he has that.

“I can’t get out just for myself. I think that’s why I always failed. It was never enough.”

“Right. Because getting out for _Carrie_ worked _wonders_ .” Julia purses her lips. She knows it stings when he clenches his jaw and looks away. “That’s the thing, Peter. It _has_ to be enough. _You_ have to be enough. Because you never know what might happen. I _know_ what that job is to you. What it’s _always_ been. You get out for the wrong reason, if that reason disappears, you’ll be back.”

“I won’t. Not when I have Johnny.”

She gives him a hard narrow-eyed stare, glancing at their son and lowering her voice. “You’ve had Johnny for the past eight and a half years. You knew I would let you back into his life if you were serious enough about it. But you never tried. It was never enough. And it can’t be enough now. You get out for yourself or you’ll be right back where you started.” Seeing his features falling and his smile fading away completely, she puts a hand on his forearm. “I know I’m harshing your mellow here. But…” She takes a deep breath to steady her voice. “I can’t watch you go through that again. Because this time it won’t be just you. Johnny’s not a baby anymore. You’re real to him now. He almost lost you two months ago. And when he couldn’t stop crying on that plane, when he thought you were dead, I regretted ever having told him about you. I hated myself for thinking like that, but I _did_ . And if he loses you again… _now…_ ”

Setting his plate on the table, Quinn wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer and covering her head with the palm of his other hand. “He won’t. _You_ won’t.”

“I don’t care about me…” she starts, but he shakes his head.

“ _I_ do. _I_ care, Jule. And you’re not _harshing my mellow_ \- you’re right. I hear what you’re saying. And maybe getting out for myself _should_ be enough. But I have so much more to live for now. Didn’t you say I should stop trying to die for the people I love and try to live for them?” He can feel her head move up and down under his chin, her hair tickling his neck, and he smiles. “And I’m glad I have you in my life again to bust my balls when I need it. I forgot how _annoying_ you get when you do that, but I _am_ glad.”

She snorts. Then lifts her eyes to his face, not smiling anymore. “I know I should just be happy for you. And a _huge_ part of me is. But I don’t want you to do this for the wrong reasons. Because I don’t want you to end up going back. It’s going to be hard, Peter. And I mean _really_ hard. Finding a job, going back to school, dealing with the PTSD - everything… You have to want this. For _you_ , nobody else. Because you’re the one who’s going to need to do all the work. Carrie, Max, Astrid, Johnny and I are here now. But once we go back, it’ll be just you. We’ll still be around, but you’ll be the one doing the heavy lifting. Every day. You need to want it. Because it’s going to be your worst nightmare.”

She can feel him sigh into her hair, then kiss it. There’s a smile in his tone when he finally speaks. “If I tell you that I want it more than I wanted to go out with you fourteen years ago, would you believe me?”

Julia giggles. “I’d say _bullshit_ .  But it’s a _start_.”

Laughing, he nods and leans back, keeping an arm around her. He remembers having a dream like this, a fantasy, back when he still dared to have hopes for the future. He used to imagine them in a small house, somewhere in the suburbs, in their backyard, having friends over for brunch, or a barbecue. This is how he pictured himself - surrounded by their children, by the people closest to them, sitting next to Julia, the sun on his face, his arm around her, just enjoying the moment of simple, peaceful life. Out of all of the fantasies he had about having a family, _this_ one was his favorite. They are half way across the world now, in a hospital, but it feels like he’s there, in his backyard, home.

He looks at Julia again. “I’ll make it. I have to.” He doesn’t _need_ her to believe him, but he really _wants_ her to. And when she looks up, smiling and giving him a slight nod, he feels the tears stinging his eyes.

“So…” With a lighter tone now, she steers the conversation to a place that makes it more real for him. “Any ideas about what you’re going to do when we’re back home?”

He smirks, motioning with his head to Johnny and Astrid. “ _They_ had some thoughts. I think the latest was a mall security guard. Their ideas always end up with me shooting someone, though.”

Taking it as a cue to chime in, Astrid, who’s been half-listening, half-watching a trailer for the new Star Trek movie on Max’s phone, gives him a small smile.

“Eigentlich hatte ich nur eine andere Idee.”

Without realizing her speaking in German, Quinn raises an eyebrow. “Ich habe Angst zu fragen…” He means it - he really _is_ afraid to ask what the fresh hell she has in her mind for him _now_. Then, noticing Julia’s questioning stare, he remembers himself and translates for her.

Astrid waits for him to finish and her smile widens. “Verstehst du, was ich meine? Wie viele Sprachen sprichst du?”

Actually, he does see what she means, and it’s not a bad idea at all. How many languages does he speak? He counts in his head.

“Six. Well, five, not including English.”

“Spanish? Arabic? Farsi?”

He nods to all three.

“You’re _golden_. In the States, that is. If you want, I can ask around about interpreter positions in the UN.”

_Day one - A LOT less scary._

He’s not sure about the UN, but he loves the idea. He nods a ‘thank you’ at Astrid, but she’s already back to watching the trailer. Barely able to contain his excitement, he looks at Julia. She’s beaming with joy and pride and her eyes are soft and glowing, filled with real hope. And suddenly, it's as if the last eight years never happened. Before he even stops to think, he leans down and kisses her hard on the mouth, then pulls away, smiling. Julia holds her breath, blushing deeply, then lets it out and swallows around the lump in her throat.

Seeing the awe on her face, or what reads mostly as _‘what the fuck???’_ , he moves his head further away from hers, without shifting his gaze from her eyes. He knows her. He’s seen this look before. For four years he’d seen it every day. He’s not wrong. He can’t be. Not about _this_.

He feels that same smug grin spread all over his face again. Yeah, he’s not getting out for himself or for Johnny. He’s getting out for _her_ . He owes her. Everything. And she loves him. He’s not sure if she _still_ loves him or if she loves him _again_ , but he _knows_ she does. And he wants this, _her_ , the life he once dreamt of, the brunch with friends in his backyard, the woman who knows him better than anyone else in the world curled at his side.

Julia clears her throat and moves away, freeing herself from under his arm. Numb with shock, she reaches for the picnic basket and fetches the box with the watermelon.

“Dessert?” Her voice is a little strained as she places it on the table.

Everyone grabs a new plate, oblivious to what just happened. They are all stuffed, but there’s really nothing that beats a cold watermelon on a warm summer day. Julia struggles to get the container open, her fingers barely moving.

“It’s ok, let me,” Quinn smiles, gently removing her hands from the box and softly pushing her to sit back. Seeing that she’s shaken up, he lets her have a moment to herself, popping the lid open and filling everyone’s plates.

Stuffing the first cube into his mouth, he notices her eyes on him. The cool, juicy feeling of summer filling his throat is sweet and delightfully refreshing. But not nearly as much as the wave of hope and contentment washing over him when she gives him a small smile and mouths that they’ll talk later.

_Day one - Julia._

 

**16:41**

The rest of the afternoon is a blur. They spend about two more hours at the same table just talking, laughing, and digesting before it’s time to go. The last thing he feels like doing right now is attending his PT session. But he promised he wouldn’t miss them anymore. Max and Astrid are taking Johnny for some more sightseeing. They invite Julia to join them, but she claims she could use the exercise herself. Quinn tries not to read too much into it - it’s not the first time she’s come along. So have Astrid and Carrie in the past, even Max once. The PT room is basically a gym, and they usually do a workout on their own, while he is busy with his therapist.

But the truth is, it feels different. _Everything_ feels different. Every time she catches him staring at her, she averts her eyes, quickly breaking the contact. She looks a little wary, almost distraught, trying to steer clear of him. But that just makes his head spin so much harder. Because he can’t be wrong about this. The kiss was brief, a single moment of being overwhelmed by the joy of starting to figure out his new life, but she kissed him back, leaned into him. He feels like a fucking horny teenagaer again and he doesn’t care. He’s ashamed of being a little relieved that Johnny is going with Max and Astrid, but he can’t think of anything other than being alone with her again. They need to talk. But mostly, he needs to hold her against him again, kiss her, taste her, dissolve into her.

It’s true, they’ve been very physical with each other these past two months but it meant nothing, that’s just who they always were, how close they were. He held her in his arms just last night and it was nothing but an act of tenderness and compassion. He feels his skin scorching now everytime their hands touch. He keeps wondering if there’s a place around the hospital where they can be really alone. And he means _really alone_. His compromised vision blurs even further every time he imagines it, his whole body aching and burning.

When she disappears into his bathroom and emerges again wearing her workout tights, stuffing her t-shirt and jeans into her backpack, he can’t help a smile - she brought a change of clothes, she was planning on staying with him all along. He can’t be bothered to stop and think that she actually always accompanies him. It just all seems to have a different purpose all of a sudden.

“Any preference?” she asks, motioning to the three books on his night stand.

The only thing that makes the tedious exercises tolerable for him is reading as he’s working out. He can’t do it on his own anymore, because the sweat gets into his eyes and the reading glasses keep slipping off. So they read aloud for him.

“Yeah,” he smirks, knowing that she’ll figure it out.

Julia rolls her eyes and picks up the heaviest book. “It’s a workout on its own,” she laughs, weighing it in her hand.

Quinn smiles wider. “It’s worth it. And you _know_ it.”

She does. Almost fourteen years ago she started reading it on her own, right before he came back from the mission that took him away following his five-day long relentless pursuit of her. It was the first book they ever read together, and it took them over four months to finish it.  When Leonid gave her the titles of Quinn’s three favourite books, he anointed The Lord of the Rings ‘John’s bible’.

“Yeah, yeah… let’s go. We’ll be late,” she urges him.

They won’t be. Because with Julia there’s no such a thing as being late. Watching her skip and jump a little as she walks ahead of him, Quinn shakes his head - some things just never change.

 

Having finished her workout before him, Julia is splayed on her back, occupying a bench next to his lat pulldown. One of her legs is bent and the foot of the other is thrown on top of her kneecap. Her head positioned on top of a folded towel, she holds the enormous volume of Tolkien’s book above her and reads out loud.

“Why don’t I remember this part?” she exclaims at some point, pausing and turning to face him.

“Which one?”

“With Tom Bombadil?”

“Ah… it wasn’t in the movies.”

Julia scoffs. “But I _read the book!_ ”

“I know.” Shrugging one shoulder, Quinn winces, pulling the lat bar down again and feeling his back muscles beginning to burn. “But it’s been a while. I’ve read it about half a dozen times, and every time I find something I can’t seem to remember.”

Julia half closes the book and inspects its width. “ _Six times?_ ”

“Probably more.”

“Jesus…” she sighs, then, as she remembers something, her smile turns impish and her eyes squint. “Were you freaking out every time Frodo almost gets eaten by Shelob?”

The lat bar gets loose and flies all the way to the top. Quinn swears under his breath, stretches up to get ahold of it again, then shoots her a scathing look.

“ _Not funny…_ ”

Julia drops the book to her face, and it bounces from her laughter.  “See…” Her voice is muffled by the pages. “It _is_ funny. Scary assassin with borderline catatonic arachnophobia...”

Quinn pulls the bar all the way to his chest, huffing in frustration, then releases it again and sits up. “Shelob is _not_ just a spider!”

Julia giggles harder. “The one in our _bathroom_ was…”

He starts to say something in response then bites his tongue, rolls his eyes and goes back to exercising. Soon enough, Julia resumes her reading and he smiles. He’s not sure there’s another person in his life who knows about his paralyzing fear of spiders. But for some reason, right now, he feels a warm sensation spreading all over him, remembering how Julia used to fearlessly pick up the monsters with her bare hands and throw them out, while he just stood there, wide-eyed and unable to move.

“You’d save me from Shelob,” he smirks in the end.

Julia pauses. “Yeah, _right_. I’m no Sam. I would have grabbed that ring and ran off to rule the world. Sauron and I would have gotten along just fine.” Catching him just sitting there, looking at her, she raises her head. “You need a break?”

“No, I can push a little longer… I think.”

He looks around at the emptying PT room. His therapist gives him two thumbs up and an encouraging smile. Quinn nods and shifts his eyes back to Julia.

She’s reading again, swinging her foot from side to side. She has no clue what she does to him. She used to laugh him off when he would tell her how beautiful she was, how just looking at her made him ache with longing. His throat goes so dry that it feels like sandpaper and he can’t even swallow.

He needs water. Still staring at her, he lets go of the bar and reaches for his bottle. When he tries to take a drink, he misses his mouth and instead hits his jaw, spilling water all over his neck and dropping the bottle in the process.

“I got it, keep going.” Before he has a chance to bend down and pick it up, Julia is already there, handing it back to him. “Here.”

That’s about as much of it as he can take. She barely has time to gasp his name before his mouth is on hers -  hot, frantic, and desperate at first, deep and urgent. She moans a soft cry, leaning into him, and his hands slide up to frame her face, then stroke her hair. He breaks away, but only for a second, and when he kisses her again, this time it’s soft, tender, almost tentative. His touch changes as well, just his fingertips now, wandering and caressing, as if she was the most precious and fragile thing he ever held. Still kissing her, he reaches to get a better grasp of around her and in one motion pulls her up onto his knee. The tips her fingers scratch his abdomen as they clasp at his shirt, sending shockwaves of pleasure and yearning through every cell of his body and his every thought, but, eventually, gathering in his throat and erupting with a deep groan. Her arms loop around his neck. It’s all back - her smell, her taste, her body arching under his touch, the way she trembles when he runs his hands against her sides. His fingers slide into her hair, ripping it free and letting it spill over his arm.

He pulls away just enough to look at her. Panting and dizzy, she smiles at the adoration in his eyes, and her smile widens when he buries his hands in her hair, cradles her head between his palms and leans to kiss her again, short brushing kisses this time, whispering next to her mouth, first - just her name, over and over, and then - that she’s his, all his.

When Julia finally manages to break away she doesn’t get up, but she doesn’t let him kiss her anymore either. Her eyelids flicker for a moment and her eyes glisten with tears. She places a soft hand on his chin, her thumb and fingers sliding against his jawline. She looks into his eyes for a long, lingering moment, brushing her lips against his just briefly before standing up. Her vision is foggy, and she nearly tips over. Feeling Quinn’s hands on her hips, steadying her, she takes a deep breath, a step back, and slowly frees herself. Then turns around and walks away.

 

**18:03**

By the time Quinn finds her in his room, she’s already changed back into her street clothes, her hair pulled up and smile as soft and carefree as ever. Her face is stained with tears though, and as he’s walking in, he can see her wiping her eyes. With determined strides he closes the distance between them and reaches to hold her.

Julia places a gentle, but firm hand on his chest, right over his heart, and shakes her head. “No, Peter.” When she looks up, her lips tremble and their corners curve down. “You should take a shower. Johnny will be here soon. We should probably have a light dinner together at the cafeteria. Astrid and Max will take him home afterwards. We’ll talk then.”

Without another word, she picks up her backpack and walks out of his room, leaving him bewildered and confused, wondering what just happened. His chest feels as if an anvil has been placed on top of it, pushing deeper and deeper. He knows what he wants. He knows she wants it too. He knows her, and, what’s more, he just _felt_ it - she was never lost to him, she’s still all his. And that’s where it all comes crashing down. Because he _does_ know her: she wouldn’t have kissed him if she didn’t love him, but then again, she wouldn’t have walked away if she didn’t want to leave. Sore all over from the workout, his mind dull from trying not to picture the worst, he pushes the door to the bathroom open and steps in.

_Day one - did I just fuck it all up again?_

Julia barely makes it to the lobby, each step becoming harder and heavier, as if she’s pushing against a force that’s pulling her back more aggressively the further she gets away. Finally, she collapses into a chair. Right in front of her is the window where she stood when she first met Carrie. Probably the last time anything about any of this felt simple and right. All she wanted was for him to live, to have a chance to break free, make his own choices again, meet his son. But then she stayed. And stayed. And stayed some more.

She fell in love with Carrie, and Astrid, and Max. And Peter - _most_ of all Peter, this hardened, closed up, embattled man, beat up by life almost past recognition, so brave and yet so self-conscious. He used to _look_ like someone she loved once, and then, slowly, over the past weeks, had transformed in front of her eyes into someone even more loving, more passionate, more daring and hopeful. She felt she owed him. She wanted to try and guide him through the pain and confusion towards what seemed to matter the most to him - choosing life away from what’s been killing him for years, choosing Carrie, choosing his son. And now, she ended up being the same thing she was to him in the past - the place where he hides so that he never has to confront any of it. She led him on. And it has to stop. Today.

She takes out her phone and opens the browser, but she’s too shaken up to find the right site. She needs help. She considers calling Max or Astrid, then decides against it - too many questions. She starts dialing Andrew, then stops. He will have more questions than _any_ of them. And it’ll break his heart. Again.

In the end she calls the only person who will do what she asks without putting her on the spot or lecturing her on how tremendously stupid she’s been. And still is.

“Still remember my name?” Leonid quips, answering on the first ring.

“Hey,” she breathes, so relieved to hear his voice that the tears just come.

“Jules? You ok? _John_ ok?”

“No,” Julia whispers. “I need your help.”

“Sure. Tell me.” Then, more cautiously: “What did he do now?”

Leonid and Peter haven’t spoken in years - _eight and a half years_ . When Peter left, he cut and ran. At the time, Julia was too devastated herself to think about what it did to Leonid. When she fi nally did consider it , it was too late. If he was hurt, he’d never shown it. He never bailed on her and Johnny. He wasn’t Peter’s contact anymore, but he remained her closest friend, and the only person she had, other than Andrew, who connected her to that part of her life. He was angry with Peter for leaving, he _still_ is, but he never stopped being his friend either.

“Nothing. It’s not his fault. It’s mine. I’ll tell you later.”

“ _His_ fault. The dumb bastard left you to raise the child alone, _his_ child. _All_ his fault.”

“The _dumb bastard_ is still your best friend,” she reminds him with a sad smile, wiping her tears.

“Yes. And I’ll still kick his sorry ass when we meet. What do you need?”

“Tickets. Home. Tomorrow, the first flight you can find.”

“Done. I’ll message you the details. Meet you at the airport.”

“Thanks, Lon.” He’d told her that his name in Russian is usually shortened to Lyonya. Like most Americans, she could never pronounce it. After a while, they settled on Lon.

“I’m gonna kill him, fucking _kill him_. You crying again.”

Julia laughs through tears. “No, you won’t. I’ll see you in a day or two, yeah?”

“In a day. I’ll find a flight. Talk to you soon.”

“Umm… Lon?”

“Won’t tell Stevenson. Too many questions with the old man. I get it.”

“Yeah. Thank you. Bye.”

“Will still kill him. Bye.”

 

**21:15**

_Day one - all fucked-up._

Julia is detached. She looks sad. He knows this kind of ‘sad’; he’s seen it before. She’s heartbroken, but she’s made up her mind. When she gets like this, there is nothing he can do to change it. He will try. He’ll at least attempt to understand why. Every time she sees him with Johnny, her eyes fill with tears. She’s leaving. She hasn’t told him yet, but he knows. He’ll try to stop her. And he’ll fail.

Deep in his heart, Quinn knows this will probably be the last day he gets to spend with his son for a while. Their last hour together they spend reading. Johnny sits on his knee, cuddled next to his chest, his head on his shoulder. They are reading Foundation's Edge, one of Quinn’s favorites in Asimov’s Foundation series. But he can’t concentrate. When Johnny wants to talk about something he’s read, he has to go back and re-read that part. He’s just turning pages for his son, his face pressed into the boy’s hair, thinking that he gets it now - Johnny’s need to smell him before they part. He knows Julia would never take his son away from him. He’ll be back to the States and he’ll see him again. But for the last three weeks he’s barely been able to make it through the night without going insane from missing Johnny. It’ll seem like forever until they meet again.

They say goodnight, whisper their ‘I love you’s, rub wrinkled noses and take some more selfies at the parking lot, next to Astrid’s car. Everyone laughs at the funny faces Quinn’s making. Everyone except Julia. She’s the only one who can see the anguish behind the crinkles of those blue eyes.

They walk back to the park in silence. He takes her hand and squeezes it, and she squeezes back. Right before they sit down, he kisses the back of her wrist, then lets it go.

“Peter…” Julia starts, leaning forward on her elbows.

“You’re leaving,” he mutters, saving her the trouble.

“Yes. Tomorrow.”

He feels the muscle on his jaw twitching. “Why?”

Julia draws a deep breath and holds it in for a while before releasing it, empty and soundless. All she has are words. Any words she says will hurt. Nothing she does after that will ever make up for it. The truth is, she should have left weeks ago. The real question would be why she stayed. But she knows the answer to that one, and, undoubtedly, so does he.

“Jules?”

She realizes she’s been silent, sitting in front of him, staring at him, but really past him.

“Yeah…”

“Why are you leaving? Why now?”

“You mean is it because you kissed me? Yes. But it’s not your fault.”

The tense, concentrated expression on his face breaks into a tiny smile. “Not my fault that I kissed you or…?”

“Both. I mean… neither. No, none. None of it is your fault. I’ve been leading you on and I never stopped to think about it. It’s so silly, really. We’re adults, we kissed, big deal… But somehow, it is a big deal. Because it’s you. I know you. You… Oh _goddamnit…_ ”

He laughs softly, amused at her lack of composure: in all the years he’d known her, she was _never_ at a loss of words. He’s uncertain where she’s going with this, but he grabs the only point she managed to get across.

“Jules, you do know me. And it wasn’t just a kiss.”

She heaves a bitter sigh, grateful for the rescue, yet dreading what she’s about to say.

“I know. And the thing is, you kissed me because you want something that I can’t give you. I dunno if _can’t_ is the best word. Probably _shouldn’t_ , or _won’t_.”

His face falls, slowly draining of blood, his eyes growing darker. “ _Shouldn’t?_ How do you figure? I can take _can’t_ . I would love an _explanation_ , but you know what… I can live without one. I can take _don’t want to_ . But _shouldn’t_ ? As in… _you_ would love to, and you know _I_ would love to… but somehow you know _better_?”

“Peter, I do know better. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

“Again… why? Just quit dancing around it, Jules- it’s not like you- and fucking tell me why.”

“Because I’m the last thing you need right now.”

“ _Really_?” He feels the anger rising inside him and falls back on the bench. “That’s just _great_ , Jules. So _you_ get to decide what I do or don’t need and when.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yeah? What _did_ you mean then? Because I’m fucking trying to understand. I know I fucked it up. Eight years ago and every day since. But you’re here: you flew halfway across the world, saved my ass, took care of me, and you _stayed_ . You brought _Johnny_ back. And now you’re taking him away. Taking _yourself_ away.” He hears himself, how petty it sounds, how sorry he feels for himself, and everything inside of him squirms and twitches in agony. If anything, it makes him angrier, almost to the point of screaming. “I can take Saul, Dar, Astrid, even _Carrie_ telling me what I need. Or what I _should_ need. But not _you_ . Because _you_ should know _better_ . You are not the _last_ thing I need. You’re the _ONLY_ thing I need. And _want_ . You and Johnny. I want a chance to make it right. And unless you don’t _want_ me, I don’t understand why I can’t have that, why we can’t try again. Why are you running? What did I do that was so horrible that you can’t stay another week?”

“It’s not what _you_ did. It’s what I did, the situation I created. But before we get into that I want to make one thing crystal clear: you are not losing Johnny . I would _never_ take him away. You’re his father, and there’s no one in the _world_ I would trust with him more than I trust _you_ . But you’re in a _hospital_ . I would leave him with you in a heartbeat if you weren’t. You’ll _always_ be a part of his life, as much as you two want, for as much time as you need.”

He reaches for her hand, taking a moment to catch his breath, steady his voice.

“But not _your_ life,” he manages finally, the mere thought of it blurring her face behind the the watery film in his eyes.

Julia shakes her head slowly, covering his hand with her other one. “No, Peter.”

He nods again, slowly, then looks at her for a long time before speaking. “Jules… why?”

“There are so many reasons that I don’t know where to start.” She takes a deep breath. “For one, I think I’ve led you on. By being here, staying. Maybe that’s why I didn’t want to tell you about the whole ‘waking you up from a coma’ ordeal. I didn’t do that to win you over. And I didn’t want you to feel like you owed me.”

“I don’t. I mean, I do. I owe you. But that’s not why I want you back. I want you for all of it. All of you.”

“See…” Julia strokes his hand. “That’s what I mean! That’s another reason. You say you want me ‘back’. But Peter, there’s no going back. Not to what we had. And I know it’s just a word you’re using, but I feel like you really do mean it like that. Listen, we were brave... and _stupid_ . _Mostly_ stupid. And we paid a price that I’m not prepared to pay ever again. Or watch you pay it. And that’s why I’m the last thing you need right now. And before you get angry again, what I mean is, all those years ago I thought I could be your refug e, and so did you. And for a while it served us both just fine. Until it _didn’t_. Because I could never love you enough to shield you from all the shit you were in. And I really shouldn’t have even tried. And now, you should be making your own decisions, dealing with things you’ve been putting on hold for years. I can’t have you hide in my arms again until it catches up with you and breaks you again. Because it will.”

Quinn shakes his head. “I _know_. And I don’t want that either. I told you - it’s different this time.”

“How? How is it different? All you’ve told me is that it’s because of Johnny. Is that it?”

“Yes. Because he means everything. And I’ll rebuild my life from scratch, I’ll have to work day and night, but I’ll make it. For him, I will. I should have a long time ago.”

“You know…” Julia levels her eyes with his. “Eight and a half years ago, I thought the same. I thought, ok, I lost you. But I have Johnny, a part of you that stayed behind, this little person who needed me to keep my shit together, someone I could give all this love inside me to that suddenly had nowhere else to go. But then… He would go to sleep, or be in kindergarten, have playdates… And I’d find myself alone, just sitting there, on the ruins of all my dreams, staring at my phone and wanting to call you and tell you I want you back. The thing about tying all your hopes to a single person is that _nobody_ can be your _whole_ life. Not even your child. Most of the day I don’t even see him, and neither will you. He has school, sleepovers, soccer practices, camps, homework… you name it. Sometimes all I get with him is dinner and an episode of Star Trek. Sometimes not even that. What are you going to do when he’s busy living his life? He’s almost nine years old right now. He’ll get older, he’ll be even _more_ busy. Do you understand what I’m saying, Peter? You can love your son, you can strive to be a good role model for him, but you _can’t_ tie all your wagons to him. It’s just going to break your heart and, what’s worse, throw you back into what you’re trying to quit.”

“So, I can’t quit for Johnny and I can’t quit for you?” Quinn purses his lips.

“Yeah. Quit because _you_ want to. Knowing that you’ll build your life for _you_.”

They’ve been over it. He pushes on. “Ok. Let’s say I quit for me. Why can’t I be a part of your life when I do? Maybe I shouldn’t have used the word ‘back’, but I _do_ want you.”

Taking another deep breath, Julia leans away. “Ok. You want me. _What_ do you want with me?”

“ _Jesus_ , Jules! I have to spell it out to you? I want a _life_ with you. I want more children with you. I want a _home_ . Yes, the same home we once dreamt of. I want it _now_. I want to make it up to you…”

“How? How are you going to make it up to me?” Her voice jumps a couple of notches louder and it takes some work to dial it back down. “Peter, you know me, I never needed much, not from _you_ , not from _anyone_ . Fourteen years ago you offered me everything you had in this world. I was scared shitless of the kind of responsibility it involved, but I took it. And for four years I tried to live up to it. And maybe it sounds selfish of me, or maybe I don’t _care_ how it sounds, but what do you have to offer me now? I mean, I get what’s in it for you, but what’s in it for me? What’s changed?”

He feels his teeth clench hard, his cheeks sucked in until they begin to hurt. He wants to say ‘everything’, but he knows better. Because really, it’s nothing. He has nothing to offer anyone. He’s not even out yet. When he is, he’ll need a job. For a while, he’ll need to work day and night to find his own place in this world. And that's assuming that someday he will. Two and a half years ago these same thoughts drove him to Syria, away from Carrie, after offering _her_ a world he didn’t yet have.

“Jules…” He finds himself fighting against everything he just thought about. Because he can’t let it go, not now, not with _her_ . “It’s too much to ask, I understand. And you’re right, I have nothing right now. But I _will_ . I don’t want to- I _can’t_ lose you.”

“Peter, you lost me a long time ago. In some ways. And in many other ways you can never lose me.” She leans forward again, looking deep into his eyes. “But listen to what you’re saying. _You can’t lose me?_ What does that even mean? What will happen if you do? What if I get hit by a car a year from now? I’ve never understood what people mean when they say things like that. That’s just laying it all on the other person. You can’t lose me, so I’m supposed to… what? Cave in? Say… _oh wow, you can’t lose me... oh well, then, I guess it doesn’t matter what I think or feel?_ ”

Quinn yanks his hand from between hers and turns sideways, starting to leave. But then he sits back down, pale, his expression hollow and his eyes a bottomless void.

“Is that what you really think? That it doesn’t matter to me? What you’re feeling? What you want? For _fuck’s sake_!!!”

“No. I’m saying that when you throw shit like ‘you can’t lose me’, this is what it feels like.”

“Ok. _Fine_ . So, I _don’t_ care about what _you’re_ feeling…”

“I never said you didn’t _care_ …”

“Right. _My_ bad. You said it didn’t _matter_ to me. Say it _does_ . Humour me. What _are_ you feeling? Look me in the eye, _right now_ , and tell me you don’t have feelings for me. You do that and I’ll _never_ bother you again. That’s a promise.”

Julia leans across the table and bores her eyes into his. “I _won’t_ . Not because I _do_ . But because it makes no _fucking difference_ what I’m feeling for you.”

His eyes open wide with genuine shock and disbelief. “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, JULES?” he screams, seeing black, going nearly blind with rage. But she just sits there says nothing, her eyes fixed on him, full of pain, but calm and fearless, and he deflates. “Jules…” His voice is much lower now, nearly inaudible. “Explain it to me. I don’t get it. I’m telling you I want to have a life with you, my _whole_ life. How does it make no difference what you feel about me?”

Julia’s face twitches, her lips tremble. She puts her hand on the table between them, leaving it up to him to put his own inside it. When he does, his fingers wrapping helplessly around it, she gasps for air, averting her eyes. But only for a moment. Because she does owe him this much.

“It makes no difference, because even if I do love you, I can’t. I can’t have a life with you.”

His elbows slide to the sides until his head comes to rest on top of their joint hands.

“Why not?”

Julia runs her fingers through his hair. “Because you’re in love with another woman, silly.”

He lets out the breath he’s been holding. “Carrie…”

“Yeah. _Carrie_ . You’ve loved her for years now, Peter. You have no idea how she feels about you. Or maybe you do, I don’t know. You said you’d talk to her, but you never did. Do you expect me to believe that it just changed? A few hours into your new life and you’ve fallen out of love with a woman who’s been your whole world for the past… I don’t even know how _many_ years.”

“ _Motherfucker_ ,” he hisses, surrendered, defeated.

Julia manages a small smile. “Sounds about right.”

“Jules…” Quinn sits back up, shaking his head in exasperation. “I don’t know what I’m feeling about Carrie. And it has nothing to do with you. I know what it _looks_ like, or what it _feels_ like. I know what I _wanted_ for it to be. I thought being in Syria changed that. It didn’t. I think…” He stops, closes his eyes. “Fuck, I don’t know what I think…”

Julia arches her eyebrows, purses her lips. “And yet you’re asking why I wouldn’t want to take you up on your offer to spend your life with me?”

He exhales. “No, I get it.”

“Do you? Because this is important. Let’s say we get together… or you know what? Let’s say you get together with another woman. In a year or two you realize that you _do_ want Carrie. That you loved her all along. What then? How’s this fair? To _anyone_ ? _Including_ you? _And_ Carrie. What if she does love you? You never asked her, the two of you never talked.”

“Yeah, I know,” he mutters, looking to the side and heaving a deep sigh.

“And it’s more than that. Think about how _I’m_ feeling. Am I supposed to think that you’re _settling_ for me? That you’re with me because you can’t sort out your feelings for another woman? This is fucked-up, Peter. And not just for me - for you, too. _Nobody_ should settle. Not when it comes to who they spend their lives with. Life is hard enough. You’ve got money problems, job problems, school problems, pipes leaking… you’ve got all kinds of shit. You don’t need me wondering if you’re with me because you love me or because you just wanted to right a wrong, and you couldn’t face Carrie. And I don’t want you to wonder if you’ve made the right choice.”

For a moment he looks even more subdued, his face draining of all color, his features appearing lifeless. But then he looks at her and shakes his head.

“You’re right. Everything you said. It’s a ‘no’. I get it. And I understand why.” He brings himself forward, holding her stare, and puts his other hand on the table, waiting for her to take it. “But Jule... if I spent my life with _you_ , I would _never_ feel like I’m _settling_ for you. I’d feel and _know_ that I won the lottery, _every fucking day._ And I’d want you to feel the same. About me, about yourself. You could never be second place.”

Julia nods, then starts crying. And for the first time in his life, seeing her tears, Quinn doesn’t feel like shooting someone. He gathers her into his arms, and before he knows it he’s crying too.

It takes a long while for them to quiet down in each other’s arms, and then longer still for the both of them to let go. And then some more before they tear their eyes from those of the other.

Quinn talks first, his voice still trembling, his face twitching again when he asks, “Can I be the one to tell Johnny?”

Julia nods, wiping her face with the inside of her wrist. “Yeah. I’ll bring him over in the morning so you guys can talk. And… I know you’re gonna miss him. I can only imagine how it feels when you want to make up for all the time you’ve lost. But you’ll see him in two weeks, a month tops. You’ve got the rest of your lives together. He’s yours. And believe me, after a season or two of Star Trek, you might even want to take a break… you know, to stick your head in a toilet and scream for a while. I know _I_ do.”

He feels a burst of laughter tearing through the grief. “I doubt it.”

Julia tilts her head from side to side, considering it. “Maybe not the latest seasons… but you get to The Original Series, you might feel… differently.” She stands up, straightening her clothes and picking up her bag. “C’mon,” she says, extending her hand for him to take. “I’ll walk you to your room and stay with you a bit.”

Quinn looks up, then slowly shakes his head. “I can’t. I’ll stay here for a while. Think. I need some time.”

“Ok.” Leaning in, Julia drops a soft kiss into his hair. “I’ll message you when I get there.”

He smiles, drawing her in and resting his head against her tummy, one arm around her waist, the other holding her hand to his lips.

“Bye, Jules,” he whispers. “Drive safely.”

And he lets her go.

_Day one - loss._


	15. The Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The direct continuation of the previous chapter.
> 
> The patch stories will probably come back, but from now on it's mostly the end of Berlin story.

**Day one, 23:52**

It’s getting cold.  He feels violent shivers with every gust of wind that blasts through his short-sleeve shirt . They say it’s going to rain tomorrow, possibly even tonight. He knows, because he’s been planning to ask for a pass to go leave and take a tour around the city with Johnny. The prospect of stormy weather kind of put a dent in their plans, but as Julia said, “Just because it’s raining a little? So it rains, you’re not made of sugar, neither of you. Despite what you  _ might _ think. Go out and have fun.” Julia has a way about her: she can see  a big deal  in things that most people would choose to glide over, but she can be dismissive of pretty much anything that stands in a way of having a good time. 

His phone buzzes.

-Got to Astrid’s safely. Johnny is already passed out. Kissed him for you. Night

There’s a winking emoji at the end. It’s funny how after messaging someone for a while, you begin to see their faces in the emojis. It’s kind of idiotic, but about two weeks ago it got really irritating. The thing is, Quinn had never used a smartphone before Max bought him his first one just after he was extubated. Well, almost never. And when he did, it was some crappy Chinese model that he’d get as a burner when he couldn’t find a simple old fashioned one.

It took some getting used to. First, because he didn’t have to discard his phone at the end of the day. Max also got a little memory card for him, so he could store more pictures. Pictures are another thing he’d never kept before, not on a phone, anyway. Now he has them on that little sd-card and on something called Google cloud, too. When he’s alone and bored, he goes over all the new pictures of that day, sorts them out and syncs them. 

There are pictures of Franny, more and more, since he can’t seem to have enough and Carrie shares every single one that she gets from Maggie now.  There are pictures of Johnny that he takes himself. He used to think people were dumb for being obsessed with snapping pictures all the time, instead of enjoying the moment. But he found himself rather enjoying it, choosing the composition, aiming for the right depth of field. He’s actually thinking about taking a course in photography when he’s back home. He finds it fascinating. There are many,  _ many _ selfies that Johnny takes of the both of them and sends over. If he looks hard enough, he can see the differences in appearance, changing and transforming over the past weeks, his smile getting happier, his eyes brighter, his expression more hopeful.

Right. The emojis. The faces. About two weeks ago Max got a new phone for him, instead of the first one he used. It has better camera, larger screen (better for his eyesight), better resolution, more internal storage. Whatever Max says, really. Well, Max  _ and _ Johnny - they picked it out together. Apparently, they are ‘android’ people. Again, whatever  _ that _ means. Julia, Astrid and Carrie have iPhones. He really doesn’t care. What he has is called Galaxy s7 Edge - for the curved sides. Johnny tried to explain to him how it’s a very cool phone. He just took his son’s word for it - the only things he uses are the dialer, WhatsApp, Telegram and the camera.

But the emojis look different from what he was used to on his old Chinese smartphone. And it drove him nuts for a while, because he realized that Julia, who sends LOTS of emojis, mostly in trios, was  embedded in his mind  _ looking  _ like them: winking, blowing kisses, blushing and hugging… it took him awhile to get used to seeing her in the new emojis.

He stares at the emoji at the end of this message until it gets blurry. It’s not because of his eyesight. It’s because he can’t stop tearing up every time he thinks about her. He can’t bring himself to reply, so he just puts the phone on the table, screen down, and falls back on the  bench.

He’s been trying to think about Carrie, really. She’ll be back in two days, and they need to talk. He has no idea what about. He just has no idea about anything anymore. Almost nine years after he thought he’d lost himself, shed the last of his dreams and hopes, he’s finally hit the rock bottom just now. Everything he tries to think about brings him to tears. He’s an emotional wreck. The weird part of it, though, is that it feels more invigorating and exhilarating than anything he’s ever experienced. 

Minutes turn into hours. He’s not sure how much time passes. He’s frozen cold, but he can’t move, can’t bring himself to go back in. When the phone buzzes again, he thinks it’s Julia, that she’s probably worried. Determined to answer this time, he looks at the screen. He should’ve known better - Julia never pushes when she knows he needs time. It’s Max.

-Ok?

Quinn smiles. Even Max brings tears to his eyes now. Maybe, especially Max. He never says much, never asks to talk, never pushes his own agenda, but he sees everything. Quinn opens the keyboard.

-No

-Spoke to Julia. She just dozed off

-She ok?

-No

He almost expects Max to tell him that they are both idiots. But he doesn’t. For a while there are no more messages. Then…

-On my way. Want me to grab some coffee? You still outside?

Quinn smiles. That’s the thing about Max. No matter what he says, Max will come.

-Coffee sounds good. Yeah, outside

Fifteen minutes later, Max is there. Without saying a word, he hands Quinn an extra large cup of black coffee, puts an arm around his shoulders, grabs him under the armpit and pulls him up. He doesn’t let go all the way back to Quinn’s room, all the way to his bed, where Quinn just sits a while, staring dead ahead, quiet and broken.

Max lets him be, taking his place in the armchair and reading something on his phone, pushing up his glasses from time to time.

“Chess?” Quinn asks after some time.

“Sure,” Max says, getting up and fetching the board from the little closet by the door.

“No timer,” Quinn warns him.

Max shoots him a cheeky look, taking the game clock as well and heading back. “Yes timer.” 

“Are you trying to piss me off?”

“Yep.”

“Because you’d rather I get pissed than just sit here and stare?”

“Yep.”

“Thought so…” Quinn smiles, for real, a big wide smile. His eyes crinkle.

Max hits the timer, having made his first move. “Go.”

Several moves into the game, Max stops the clock and looks at Quinn. When Quinn gives him a quizzical stare, he pushes his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose, and tilts his dead sideways.

“You ever hear of chess probabilities?”

Quinn’s grin widens - this is his favorite part of playing with Max, the little talks they have, about math, numbers, mechanics, physics.

“Not sure. But go on.”

“Chess is a game with many figures, many positions, right?” When Quinn nods, Max takes out his phone and quickly calculates something. Then turns the screen towards his opponent. “Seventy two thousand and eighty four possible games of chess.”

“A lot,” Quinn agrees.

“No, that’s not the point. That’s just by the second move you make. See, every move means it’s a different game, different reality. You’ve  heard of the multiple universes, I’m sure, you’ve studied physics, maybe even some quantum physics. But the point is, once you start, the number of possible games you can play increases exponentially. See…” he calculates some more. “By the third move, you get to about nine million. And by the fourth - over three hundred  _ billion _ .”

Quinn considers it, then nods slowly. “Nice odds. Never really thought about it like that.” He smirks then, looking back at Max. “Is there a point?”

“Nope.” Max hits the timer, bringing his head back into the game at hand, but then stops the clock again and lifts his gaze. “Maybe. I don’t know if I ever told you, but I was a chess prodigy when I was fourteen years old. I think… chess has been my way of looking at life ever since. Those are not just odds for me. See, once you’ve been brave enough to make that first move, the number of possible games just keeps increasing for a while. Kind of like… even if you make a mistake, your chances of fixing them are almost countless. And in life, the numbers are much bigger.”

Quinn thinks about day one, how it started, the realizations it brought, the loss, and the heartbreak it ended with. He thinks about getting out, about how scared he is.  He remembers that, when they first started playing and Quinn would take forever to pick his first move, Max would tell him that it’s understandably terrifying, but it’s also just the first move , new beginning, giving you more chances to choose your next ones. He thinks about yesterday and today: he made his first move, then he made his second. In chess, that would mean he has over seventy thousand possible outcomes right now. In life… whoa.

He smiles. “I think I get what you mean.” Then adds: “The thing is… have to finish the previous game to really enjoy this one, right?”

“Finish… win… lose… forfeit…  _ whatever _ . As long as it’s over.”

“Huh…” Quinn crosses his legs underneath him. “ _ Forfeit _ is an interesting choice.”

“You’re missing the point.”

“What point?” Quinn is actually laughing, feeling his chest getting lighter.

“Of chess. If chess was just about winning or losing or forfeiting… about the  _ outcome _ , people would probably play it just the one time. You and I play several times every night I am here. I’ve played… oh wow… probably tens of thousands of games in my life.”

“So, it’s just about playing…”

“Yep.”

“Max?”

“Yeah?”

“Are we still talking about chess?”

Max smirks. “I’m not sure we were talking about chess to begin with,” he quips, winking and hitting the clock again.

 

**Day Two, 9:23**

Johnny sits in front of his father and looks at him expectantly. He’d said they were going to have to talk. Johnny loves it. That’s his favorite phrase, too - “We need to talk.” So he’s waiting patiently for his father to gather his thoughts and tell him what’s on his mind.

Quinn is tired. He finally dozed off around five am. His eyes still feel puffy. He woke up at eight, still exhausted, but unable to go back to sleep. He’d found a message from Julia, asking what time she should bring Johnny over. She also messaged him that their flight is not until five thirty in the morning the next day, so they can go ahead and plan their outing the way they wanted, with the sightseeing in the rain and all.

He looks at his son and his heart squeezes and flips. He’s trying to find the right way to say it. He’s not going to lie to him, but he’s not going to tell him the whole truth, either. Mostly because he himself is uncertain what the whole truth is.

“C’mere,” he says, opening an arm for Johnny and smiling when his son crawls into his embrace and snuggles next to his chest.

“You want to talk because you’re sad?” Johnny asks finally, looking up.

Quinn kisses his nose, then the place right next to it, inhaling deeply, trying to keep as much of him as he can. “I’m a little bit sad, yeah. That ok?” Johnny nods vigorously, but the corners of his blue eyes are drawn down. He reaches to place a hand on his father’s face and nods once more, just to be sure he’s being completely convincing. Quinn smiles, doing his damndest to keep his voice steady and his eyes dry and focused.  “Anyway… the reason I am sad,  _ one _ of the reasons, is because you and mom are going home very soon.”

Johnny’s eyes open wide. “Really? How soon?”

“Today. Well, tomorrow early in the morning.”

Calculating something in his head, Johnny considers it. “That means I get to go to Cub Creek???” He sits up, beaming with excitement.

Quinn arches an eyebrow. “ _ Cub creek? _ ”

“Yeah! It’s a summer camp, with animals… you get to choose an animal and you learn to take care of it, like feeding them, their routine, cleaning after them…  _ everything _ . I wanted to go last year, but we were too late to sign up. It’s very popular. The year before I was too young, coz it starts at seven years old.  _ This  _ year mom signed me up back in  _ February _ . I was supposed to start in five days, but since we were here, and  _ you _ were here, I didn’t care. But now I get to go! Did mom say if I still get to go?”

“She didn’t say.” Quinn smiles, stroking Johnny’s head, playing with his hair. “But I’ll make sure you go. And you should’ve told me a while ago, or at least reminded mom. We would have found a way for you to go and then come back if you wanted to. Something you’ve been wanting this much, you should never miss, not even for me.”

Julia’s words come back to him. He’s been dreading telling Johnny about them leaving, and in the end, the boy couldn’t be happier. He has his own life, his own dreams and plans for the summer.

“Well, I  _ know _ I  _ wanted _ to go. But I wanted to stay here with you, too. Because you needed us. And it was fun. And it’ll be more fun when you get home. But we’re leaving now because you’re all better, right? And you’ll be flying home next week? And mom has work, too.”

Another good point. Knowing Julia, she probably has years’ worth of vacation days, but she does have a life to go back to. 

“Yep. I might even get out earlier. But it’ll take me some time to settle down when I’m back home. I need to find a job, an apartment, finish my… exit from the Agency. So, I guess by the time you get back from…”

“... Cub Creek.”

“...  _ Cub Creek _ , I’ll be almost done.”

Johnny throws his arms around his father, squeezing his eyes shut and smiling delightedly. “I’ll send you  _ lots  _ of pictures from camp. You should get a bigger sd-card. The one we got for you was what... 32 gigs? That phone supports… wow, up to 2T I guess. I think the biggest one they have now is 128? You should get one.”

Quinn laughs into his son’s hair. “I will. First thing tomorrow morning.  _ Actually…  _ how about we get one today when we wander around? You can choose one for me.”

“Yay! Yes!” Johnny bounces on his knee. “There’s a huge electronics shop on Potsdamer. We can stop by. I was there with Max about a month ago. Took us like three hours to stop staring and drooling. I think they have the Lexar cards. Those are the best.”

Quinn draws him closer. “Do you have  _ any _ idea how much I don’t care?” he laughs. “But I know you’ll choose the best for me.” He kisses Johnny’s hair, then tilts his head up and cradles the side of his face in his palm. “So, you’re into animals too, huh?”

“Yep.”

“So, let me see…” Opening one finger at a time, Quinn counts his son’s passions known to date. “Star Wars, Star Trek, BSG, sci-fi books, electronics, animals… Just making sure I am not missing any of my homework subjects.”

Johnny giggles. “Dad, there’s like  _ tons _ more. You’ll never make it in two weeks.”

“I should start  _ somewhere _ .”

“There are also comic books.”

_ Of course there are _ . “Jesus… How many?”

“What? My collection?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Right now? Nine hundred twenty seven. But Max promised to get me some of the old Marvel ones. Collector’s edition. So… will probably be more by the time you get home.”

_ Jesus-Fucking-Christ. _ “I see. Any idea where I should start catching up? Can we at least mark Star Wars as done? I watched all the movies... I  _ think _ .”

“Dad…” Johnny sighs and rolls his eyes in amusement.

“Let me guess… not even  _ close _ ?”

“Oh man… where do I even  _ start _ ? There’s the Clone Wars cartoon, then there’s…”

“I get the picture. I’m royally f…  _ screwed _ .”

Johnny smirks. “ _ Attached to another object by an inclined plane, wrapped helically around an axis? _ ”

Quinn laughs until he’s snorting. “At least I get the physics part of it. Just don’t tell me it’s a quote from another show.”

“Yeah. The Big Bang Theory. Well, it’s an old joke. But it’s also a quote. You never watched it? It’s a show about nerds. Like Max. Max  _ loves _ it.”

“Of  _ course  _ he does.” Sighing, Quinn gives up. “Tell you what. You make a list when you’re on the plane. Send it to me. And pick out something that I’ll be able to catch up on in say… two to three weeks?”

“Deal,” Johnny says, his voice much lower now.

As he nods, his face rubs against his father’s shoulder on one side and the palm of his hand on the other. And suddenly, he’s sad too. Summer camp or not, right here, right now, he’s where he wanted to be for so long. He knows it wasn’t really a vacation - when they first got here, his father was very sick. And he’s still not all better. But it’s been the happiest time of his life. And now it’s almost over.

Sensing his son’s change of mood, Quinn lowers his head and presses his forehead to Johnny’s.

“I know. It’s been so much fun. But hey… it’s  _ nothing _ compared to the fun we’re going to have when I’m back home. Every day.” He tightens a half circle of his arm around Johnny. “I’ll be coming over, picking you up after school. We’ll be going out, talking, reading, books  _ and _ comic books. Sometimes we’ll be staying home and watching all of your favorite shows, then talking about them. I’ll probably go back to school at some point too. We’ll do our homework together…  _ And _ … in the meantime, we’ll talk on the phone, send messages and pictures, like we’ve done while you’ve been here. Whatsapp has a video chat, right?”

Johnny nods, but his fingers curl around his father’s elbow and squeeze hard. “But not like this.”

“I know, Johnny.” Fighting back yet another wave of tears, Quinn takes a minute to steady his breathing. “I’ll miss this too. But it’s just a couple of weeks. And then I’ll hold you for as long as you want, any time you want.”

Warm, cozy and snuggled to the point of what his mother calls ‘full-body cuddling lockdown’, Johnny nods again. “Do we have to go  _ now _ ? I mean sightseeing?”

Quinn strokes his hair. “Wanna stay here for a bit? We can go later on in the afternoon.”

“When the rain stops…” Johnny yawns, feeling his eyes closing, fully knowing it has nothing to do with rain.

“When the rain stops,” his father whispers, slowly rocking him from side to side, and Johnny knows he’s smiling again without needing to see it. “Coz who knows, maybe we  _ are _ made of sugar.”

“Yep…And we’ll melt…” 

He can feel his father let out a soft chuckle. “Halfway there…”

It’s barely early afternoon, more like late morning, but Johnny feels himself drifting off, remembering the very first time his father’s heartbeat lulled him to sleep, thinking how it was just like seconds. In his head, he begins a long line of multiplications, counting the seconds from nine PM tonight, when his mother said she’d pick him up, until they meet again. 

 

**Day Three, 22:17**

He’s sitting in the park again. It’s the third evening in the row. He’s alone here, it’s dark, the back entrance is closed. He’ll have to walk all the way around the hospital to the ambulance bay.

He hasn’t slept for more than four hours in a row since Julia left him right here, on this very bench, two nights ago. He gets to the point of complete exhaustion, blacks out, then wakes up still tired as hell, but not tired enough to sleep through the pain. 

The pain is physical. It’s in the middle of his chest, and it feels like an enormous press is pushing on it from the outside, while on the inside his heart is being carved out slowly by a particularly dull instrument. That’s the description he’d given his cardiologist this very afternoon, when he finally got worried and told one of the nurses he was having chest pains. 

Given the sarin exposure and his cardiomyopathy, arrhythmias, and blood pressure problems, he was plugged to the monitor on the spot and ordered not to get out of bed. Which suited him just fine. He had nowhere to go anyway. Johnny and Julia were on the plane, on their way home. They had wifi and Johnny was messaging him and keeping him company, sending pictures and voice recordings.

Remembering it now, Quinn takes out his phone and browses through the images. There’s Johnny in Astrid’s house, sitting on top of the suitcase, there’s Johnny in Astrid’s car on their way to the airport, there’s Johnny cuddled under Max’s arm with a caption of  _ ‘Your two favorite nerds’ _ , there’s Johnny at the airport. And those are just the first twenty or so. That new 128 gigs memory card is going to come in handy. There are pictures of Johnny and Julia on the plane then. Some are selfies, the two of them smiling and waving at him. All he can see are Julia’s eyes, the subtle but unmistakable wistfulness in them. Some are of Julia sleeping, her head against the airplane window. 

And then there’s one that he saved in a separate folder - it’s the one with Johnny smiling from ear to ear, and Julia leaning across from her seat and kissing the side of his head. It has the caption of  _ ‘I think mom likes me. You?’ _ . That’s the picture he got when he was still in his room, plugged to the cardiac monitor. The alarm beeped and the caption on the top of the display said  _ ‘Atrial Premature Beat’ _ . He’s been in the hospital long enough to know it means his heart had shot an early signal, and then  _ literally  _ skipped a beat.

When his cardiologist came down to see him and examine his latest ECGs, he was already plugged onto the holter, in addition to the monitor in his room, to record every change in his heart rhythm. The cardiologist listened to his description of the chest pains and lifted an eyebrow. He seemed to examine Quinn’s pale, sunken face, his red puffy eyes, for a long while, before asking him a single question, that not many cardiologists get to ask their patients: “Did something happen? Something upsetting?” Taken by surprise, Quinn just nodded in response. 

His cardiologist is an old man, in his seventies. He said he had a feeling that his younger and overly enthusiastic colleagues seemed to be forgetting that behind every echocardiography, every monitor strip, there is a human heart which, other than being the most efficient and self-sustaining muscle in our body, is also our greatest mystery. 

“You been having troubles sleeping? Waking up and not being able to go back to sleep? Reduced appetite?” he asked, giving Quinn an all-knowing half smile.

Quinn nodded to all, starting to think he should have known where this was going. 

“My young friend, stop wasting the government’s money, remove the holter, get out of bed and get a pass to get out of the hospital. I recommend a beer. Maybe a glass of wine. But hey, if you need something stronger, that works too.”

“You mean…” Quinn shot a skeptical look at the monitor display above his head.

His doctor laughed wholeheartedly and patted his arm. “I’ll get you an article. There’s a smartass that I went to medical school with who once published an actual study in the New England Journal of Medicine of all places. It’s about something he called Broken Heart Syndrome. The bottom line is… it might not be a  _ real _ diagnosis, but hey… by the time they called me, you already had three thousand dollars’ worth of tests done on you. I’ll just write it off as anxiety attack.”

Quinn frowned. “But the pain…”

“Oh, the pain is real. It comes from some chemical changes that make your heart contract in a weird way. You can ask for a Tylenol. Should take care of it just fine.” Seeing how his patient seemed unconvinced, he laughed. “Young man, if you weren’t in a hospital, you wouldn’t have given it the time of day. Everyone goes through it. You probably have in the past. Go out, get drunk. And get used to it. It’s not going away for a while. Now, if you’ll excuse me… I’ll head back to the cath lab.”

Muttering curses, Quinn yanked the electrodes off of himself, switched off the monitor, and sat up.  _ Fucking moron _ . He did remember feeling like this in the past. Many times. After his family was killed, after leaving Julia and Johnny, after going to Islamabad instead of following Carrie to Kabul, the first couple of months in Syria.  _ Fucking broken heart syndrome _ .

At that point he didn’t really know what to do with himself. And that’s how he ended up here, back on this bench, and he’s been sitting here ever since.

He’d asked Astrid and Max to stop coming for a while. He’d said he needed some time alone. Carrie is still in Prague, or God knows where. He hasn’t heard from her in two days. He’s a little worried, but not to the point of bothering her with messages. She’s supposed to be back today or tomorrow.

God, he misses Carrie. He’s not sure if he’s ready to talk to her yet, definitely not now,  _ most _ definitely not about what he needs to. He probably won’t be able to talk to her about Julia leaving either. But Julia was right - for the past four years, for him, the sun had been rising and setting with Carrie. She used to be the one place his mind would go to when the world got dark and uncertain. In all his attempts to figure out the Carrie part of his life, the only thing he managed to establish for a fact is that he does love her. She was his last attempt at giving away all that was left inside of him, all that the job didn’t rob him of.

It’s a sad kind of love, it always has been. A dreamless kind. By the time he’d found her, he didn’t have it in him to dare and hope anymore. When Carrie said that she’d just fuck it up, despite trying to sound reassuring, all he could think about was that he wrote the book on fucking it up. When he met her, he was standing at the end of a long road, paved with shards of fucked-up dreams and hopes. Whatever she thought she knew about how it would end, he knew  _ better _ , and he didn’t even have her condition to blame it on. But when he’d replied  _ “Until it doesn’t” _ , he’d meant it. Because in that moment, somehow, he saw a faint glimmer of hope. He remembers thinking that this time it was different: they are both getting out, they  _ know _ the shit of the world they are leaving behind, they’ve been through so much in the past year that the hardships of making it in the  _ real _ world are  _ nothing _ compared to that.

And now,  _ finally _ , it’s all  _ really _ different. Carrie is out. He’s out, or  _ almost _ out. And something has changed, not only between them, but deep inside of him. He’s hopeful again. But then,  _ whatever _ changed in him, whatever brought him to this place, now everything he feels about her is dislodged from the anchor, it lacks any context. For the first time, Carrie is just Carrie. And he’s just a man trying to find his place in the world. 

And that’s the first realization that hits him, the only thing, other than still loving her, that he knows for certain - were she to get herself into another shitload of trouble, he’s not going to follow her and throw himself onto every sword of her crusade, not anymore. Not because he doesn’t want to be there for her, but because he’s a father now, to a boy who two months ago nearly lost him before ever getting to know him. He might not be getting  _ out  _ for Johnny, but he’s definitely the reason he’s  _ never  _ going back in.  And nothing - not Carrie, not love of his country, not the entire world - will change his mind .

As if on cue, his phone vibrates in his pocket. It’s a short burst. A notification. He looks at the time and smiles. This ’s the one he’s been waiting for.

-Hey! We’re home. The stop in Paris was longer than planned. We just walked in. Johnny dozed off in Leonid’s car, so I just tucked him in. He’s still on Berlin time. Probably will be for a while. I’m dead tired myself. Just wanted to let you know we’re ok. You?

He looks at the message, waves of relief and sadness rippling over him.

-Ok. In the park. Thinking. You should get some sleep

-Yeah. I will

There’s a long pause that follows. He’d typed ‘Goodnight. Love you both’, then deleted it. It’s like telling her that he can’t lose her all over again. He doesn’t want her to feel obligated to say it in return. And he doesn’t want the pain of her not saying it. 

Just like that, all the thoughts about Carrie vanish and dissipate. And all he’s left with again is his grief. He wants to turn back time to four days ago, when he could just ask Julia to come over, and she would laugh and say ‘sure, silly’. It would take her about forty minutes to get here, they’d chat and giggle, then he’d fall asleep holding her hand. How on Earth did he manage to fuck-up  _ that _ ?

Before he can decide what to reply, another bubble appears.

-Want to talk?

Yes. He does. But not like this, not today, not when the only thing on his mind is that he’s probably lost the little he had left of her. He knows she meant it when she said he hadn’t. But grief is weird like that.

-Can’t. Need time alone

-Alright. Get some rest

-Sure

-Take care, Peter. I’ll see you soon. Goodnight

-You too. Night

The little line under her contact name switches from ‘online’ to ‘Last seen today at 22:46’. He feels like a caveman who’s been transported to the new world. This is another thing about smartphones that gets to him. When you chat with someone, as long as they are showing ‘online’, it’s as if they are here, right next to you. Then they go offline, and you feel like they are far away. The funny thing is - Julia _is_  far away, about _five thousand_ _miles_ away. And yet, the moment she closes whatsapp on her phone, it feels like she’s been ripped from between his arms.

He slides forward, slumping on the table, holding his phone with both hands in front of his face. His thumb is hovering over the call button, and he doesn’t even remember opening the dialer. That’s what he always used to do. After messaging for a while, he would call, they would chat and laugh, then say goodnight for real. 

He closes the dialer. He’s not the only one in pain, not the only one grieving. She left. And he recognized the gesture. He’d done it eight and a half years ago. He remembers her eyes when he last saw her yesterday. He probably had the same look when he walked out of her hospital room in the maternity ward. That’s how much it hurts to walk away when you  _ know  _ you have to, but you also know your heart stays behind. It’s not nearly the same situation. But she was left on the ruins of her life once. And now  _ he  _ is. She’d faced it, dealt with it. And so will he. 

He opens their last conversation again. There was something in her initial message that was kind of relevant to this whole owning up to his shit thing that he has going on. There it is.

He opens the dialer again and  calls a number from memory.

“Hello?” Leonid sounds cautious, wary.

They used to have a code for situations where Quinn would need to contact Leonid from an unfamiliar or blocked number. It would probably be funny to use it now. Definitely make it easier for Leonid to know who’s calling. But he stops himself before the first words are out. Because nothing is funny about leaving your best friend behind and  not making contact for almost nine years.

“Hi. It’s me.” 

He can hear some commotion, a woman’s voice speaking Russian, then some kids’ voices. Soon enough, they fade into the background and there’s the sound of a closing door.

“John.”

“Yeah.”

“I just got back from Jules’s. Dropped her and Johnny at home. They’re fine. Didn’t she message you?”

“She did. And thank you. That’s not why I’m calling.”

“Oh. Ok.” Leonid’s voice is both relieved and concerned. “How you doing, John? I saw the broadcast on the news, and Jules told me about… you know. Tough shit, man.”

Quinn shakes his head. Nine years and not a single word. And all Leonid cares about is how  _ he’s _ doing, what  _ he’s _ been through.

“I’m so sorry, Leonid,” he says, leaning back and looking up at the pitch black sky above. “I know it doesn’t make up for  _ shit _ . But I am.”

He hears Leonid chuckle. “I thought you didn’t  _ believe  _ in saying you’re sorry.”

“I know. I guess I was wrong. What did you use to say? Ah…  _ Bah, it’s just a stupid quote from a sentimental book _ .”

Leonid laughs out loud now. “You remember correctly, always a good memory. You could quote so many books. Ah, Johnny. I’ve missed you. Just get your ass back to Philly, safe and sound. And enough with the bullshit.”

“In about two weeks. Maybe a little more. And it’s not  _ bullshit _ . I mean it.”

“It’s bullshit. I’m telling you it’s bullshit. You sound like you’re a mess. But I remember how you hated it when people said they were sorry. It wasn’t just that damn quote. You used to say that people should make up for the crap they do, own up to it, not throw out empty words.”

“I don’t really know how to make up for dropping off the radar without so much as a phone call. I could’ve picked up the phone every day for all those years. You don’t make up for that.”

“Bullshit. I tell you how you make up. You come home, and you come have tea with me. I just made a new batch of jam last week. Come. Meet my wife, my kids. We talk about the book or two... And we’re even.” 

Quinn’s smile is wide and full of joy. “How many? Kids, I mean.”

“Oh… two. Six and four. Both boys. My wife, Nadya, heard all about you, from me and Jules. She’ll be happy to meet you.”

“Yeah, I’d love that too.  _ And _ the jam. Strawberry?”

“Always. You know it’s Jules’s favorite. I always make five extra jars for her and Johnny. She still eats it from the jar, no matter how many times I tell her it’s not good. It spoils faster. The stubborn woman never listens. Just giggles and eats faster. Like I wouldn’t make more for her.”

Quinn feels the tears welling up again.

“You’ve been taking care of them.”

“Of course. They are your family. You would for me.”

He’s not so sure about that. But he’s not going to start that discussion right now. He doesn’t know what to say and stays quiet for some time.

Leonid speaks first. “Speaking of family… I said to Jules I’d kick your ass when we meet. For leaving her and your kid. And I  _ should _ . You were a bastard, yeah?”

“I was.”

“Choice or no choice, a man doesn’t leave his woman to raise his kid alone. Not a man like you. You know what I’m saying?”

“I do, Leonid. Believe me.”

“So, let’s just say I kicked your ass. When Jules asks, tell her I did. It’s a matter of principle. But you do what’s right by her. She’s a good woman. The best. Don’t tell my wife I said that. And she loves your sorry ass more than she did back then.”

“I know.”

“She said you wanted to give it another go, and she told you no. And all that bullshit about you figuring out your life and shit. I don’t know what and I don’t care. You get back here. After we have tea with jam, you go to her place. You stand on your knees until she lets you in, yeah?”

Quinn smirks. Then nods. “Maybe.”

“No  _ maybe _ . You have a life with her. Have more kids. She’s always been good to you. Don’t throw that away. Life is crap enough.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

“Don’t give me that shit. Give me your word.”

“Leonid, it’s not that simple. And you know Jules. I’ll have holes in my kneecaps and she still won’t let me in if she doesn’t want to.”

“Bah, then  _ make  _ it simple. Whatever she wants you to do, to sort out - do it. As long as you need. But then you go to her. And you don’t leave until she says yes. I don’t care if you die on your knees.”

“Knowing Jules, it might just happen,” Quinn laughs.

“Bullshit. Right before you flatline, she’ll give you a mouth to mouth. That’ll do it. I remember how you two were - couldn’t take your hands off each other.”

Feeling a new wave of bitter remorse crippling down his spine, Quinn takes a moment to catch his breath. He remembers too. And that’s the only thing that he’s not sure he agrees with Julia about - there’s nothing wrong in wanting  _ some _ things back. A lot has changed and can never be the same again, true. But not the way he felt when he held her, kissed her, not the way he feels about himself when he’s with her.

“Johnny? Still there?” Leonid asks, when the line is silent for some time.

“Yeah.” Quinn rubs his face with the palm of his hand, as if trying to wipe every thought of what he knows will probably never be again.

Leonid backs down. “Listen, I know it’s complicated as hell. I’m just saying, I think you shouldn’t give up. At least think about it, yeah?”

“I will,” Quinn promises. It’s not hard, seeing how he hasn’t been thinking about much else in the last couple of days.

“Alright. I gotta go back, lunchtime here. Should I save this number?”

“Yeah. For now. It’s a local sim. I’ll message you the new one when I’m back in the States.”

“Good deal. Take care, Johnny. I’m glad you called. Don’t let it be another nine years before the next time, yeah?”

They say goodbye and Quinn drops the hand holding his phone onto his lap. His head falls back, his eyes close. Maybe facing your past shouldn’t be about righting the wrongs in it, but it sure feels better when you do. The truth is, he’s been blessed with the people in his life. Not all of them, but those he loved and  _ still _ loves - for certain. He might not be good for many things in this world, but he’s always been good at being there for those he cared about. And now they are all here for him. Maybe he should do what Julia said and stop fighting it. Because, apparently, even fucked up as it is, his life is worth something to someone.

His head still hanging back, he opens his eyes and looks at the sky. He’s trying to remember if Julia ever told him what it was that she saw there that day when she just laughed and danced under the stars for no reason. Now he’s thinking, maybe it’s hope.

He’s loved two women in his life. And maybe he’s lost both at this point. But he  _ did  _ love them, he knows what it takes to love with everything he is, even when there is barely anything left. Wherever this new life leads him, one thing he knows for certain - being able to love like that is what he’s  _ really _ good for.

Slowly, he gets up and starts to walk back. The hospital campus is huge, and the way to the ambulance bay is a hike. He doesn’t mind. The air smells of rain and grass. The wind is chilly, but he’s wearing his coat this time around. He lets his thoughts settle down and fly away. He can’t think anymore, can’t keep sorting things out. He needs the quiet, the grief. The pain is not all bad - it reminds him of what was lost, but also of how much it was loved.

He’ll talk to Carrie when he’s ready. He can’t keep forcing his way through what hurts the most. He can’t see straight, because grief makes everything blurry. He owes her more than that. He owes  _ himself _ more than that.

The door to his room is open a crack, the light is on. It’s past eleven PM and he’s wondering if Max or Astrid decided to come and stay with him despite him asking them not to.

It’s not. It’s Carrie. She’s back.

There are boxes with takeout on the table, a bottle of red wine. Carrie is moving around his room, tidying it up with the determination of what can only be compared to a heat seeking missile heading for a jet engine, or Carrie Mathison on a mission to save the world. Quinn watches her for a while, unable to hold back a smile as she rolls her eyes and swears under her breath. His room is a mess. And when Carrie takes care of him, she means business.

He might not be in any condition to have that talk with her tonight, but he did miss her. Quietly, with his heart jumping out of his chest in joy, he opens the door and steps in.

  
  



	16. The Void

He watches her for a long minute, then takes a deep breath. “Yo, Mary Poppins,” he says with a smile. The smile is forced, but the lightheartedness is real. Maybe this is what he needs, what they’ve been missing.

Carrie flinches and swings around. “Jesus, Quinn…” a hand on her chest, she exhales through pursed lips. “You scared the _shit_ out of me. How long have you been _standing_ there?”

“Not long.”

His smile widens as he crosses the room. He leans to plant a soft kiss on her temple, his hands on her upper arms, and feels her tense up under his touch. Without letting go of her shoulders, he scans her face. She looks tired: a little pale, bags under her eyes, day old makeup, her gaze scattered, unfocused.

“Carrie…” Sliding the tip of his finger in a wavy line across her forehead down to her cheekbone, he tucks a rogue strand behind her ear. 

Her eyes flicker to his face for a moment, but immediately dart away. There is a glimpse of self-consciousness that makes her look weak, weary, vulnerable, almost helpless, but it’s gone just as fast. She moves away, gently freeing herself from his hands, and heaves an exasperated sigh.

 _“Mary Poppins,_ Quinn? Really? The place is a _dump_. You could at least pick up the cards and the chess board. Not to mention the clothes everywhere.”

Ok, maybe too early for joking. “Just leave it, Carrie. It’s late and you’re tired. And I don’t care how it looks.”

“ _Fin_ _e_ .” She drops the pajama top she’d been f olding on the b ack of the chair, then props her hands on her hips and looks around. “I brought dinner. Figured I’d make a decent place to sit. Sorry about messing with your little… well, _whatever_ this is. But you’re right, you don’t need a _nanny.”_

“Carrie, I didn’t... It was a _joke_ . A fucking _joke_.” Quinn scoops a pile of clothes and moves it to the hospital bed. “Here. We can eat now. Done.”

Carrie rolls her eyes at the mess on his bed now, but lets it go and starts unpacking the food on the table. Battling the growing unease and searching to find a way back to the newfound comfort they’ve been sharing lately, he goes for a more lighthearted approach. Passing behind her on his way to the table, he throws an arm around her neck and drops a kiss on the top of her head, while his other hand shoots into one of the boxes to steal a french fry. With a mischievous grin, _a half-grin_ really, and one arched eyebrow, he slumps into one of the chairs. His eyes crinkle in a teasingly defiant manner, as he reaches to snatch a piece of lettuce from her plate. That seems to do it. When he goes in for more, Carrie pushes his hand away. She shakes her head at him, and her furrowed expression breaks into a faintly amused smile.

She resumes the process of setting the table. Quinn sits back, watching her. She works fast, her every movement military precision. He follows her hands, forcing  himself to relax, fascinated by her ability to bring so much thoroughness to this seemingly boring everyday activity. He realizes that he’s never seen her do this before: in all the years they’ve known each other, this is the first time they’ve shared a meal. He’d offer to help but thinks better of it. It’s like a dance: every movement has a purpose, perfectly timed, and he doesn’t want to throw it off beat. Having everything done her way is important to her. So he waits. By the time she’s done, not even a napkin is out of place or at the wrong angle.

“How was your day?” he asks, when she finally takes her place at the table.

Where does she even start? She’d spent the morning and early afternoon going over Keane’s speech, making sure all of her national security points are bulletproof. Then the congressman insisted she stay for lunch, where they discussed Carrie’s brief again. A black SUV with tinted windows, driven by a Secret Service agent, took Carrie from Karlovy Vary to Dresden, where she rented a car and drove to Berlin on her own.

She was back a little after eight, met with Max and got the latest update on Quinn’s condition. They grabbed a beer at a bar not far from the hospital. Carrie asked if Julia was at Astrid’s. She was planning on stopping by after going to see Quinn. Max looked like he’d rather be any place but there talking about anything but this, which wasn’t really that surprising, since this is how Max looks _most_ of the time. He said nothing about Julia, but muttered that Carrie should probably talk to Quinn in person.

“Carrie?”

She realizes she hasn’t answered his question, makes an uncertain gesture with her hand, and sighs. She can’t _really_ tell him about her day.

“Nothing much. It’s not like I have a life here anymore. Or _anywhere_ for that matter.”

That stings. She probably doesn’t mean for it to sound like her lack of life is due to being busy taking care of him, but that’s the feeling he gets. He forces himself to shake it off.

“Have you talked to Franny?”

“Not since last week.”

“Why not?”

Impatient sigh: “I don’t _know_ , Quinn. The time difference, Maggie working, me being _here_ half the time… We manage whenever we can. Why do you ask?”

“No reason.” Shoveling piles of guilt into the back of his head, he pushes aside the part where her not talking to Franny is, once again, partly _his_ fault. “You must miss her.”

“Yeah, well… not much I can do about it right now.”

“I know, but…”

“You know what, Quinn? _Don’t._ Being in your kid’s life for five minutes doesn’t exactly make _you_ an expert either.”

Even before the words are out, she knows she’s gone too far. Sickening waves of self-loathing and remorse are swept away by anger: at Quinn, for always making her feel like she needs to defend herself, and at herself, for never being able to stop and take a step back before lashing out. For fuck’s sake, all he said was that she must miss her daughter.

"You're right," he says with darkened eyes, after a pause so intense she could cut the tension with a knife.

“Quinn, I didn’t mean…”

“It’s fine, Carrie. Let’s just eat.”

“Quinn…”

“Carrie, forget about it.”

She opens her mouth to retort, to say she’s sorry, but something on his face stops her. He’s always known how to choose his battles, often leaving her to stand in the middle of the battlefield, neither triumphant not defeated, letting her draw her own conclusions and live with them.

She realizes only now how long it’s been since she last felt like that with him: a partnership rooted in constant struggle, the closest she’d ever come to completely trusting another person, despite his infuriating insistence to call her on every piece of bullshit she’d throw at him. As frustrating as it was at times - him being in her head - she misses it. And she doesn’t. Her mind jumps back to their last phone conversation when she was in Prague, then further - to their late night strolls around the hospital. Looking at his face now, she begins to wonder whether any of it, the ease of it all, was real. She’s trying to remember him smiling, laughing, the joy in his voice when he’d talk about Johnny. She can’t. It’s all gone, as if the last two months never happened.

Fighting the urge to fix it, she leaves it alone and pretends to eat, shuffling lettuce leaves and pieces of tomato across the plate with her fork. Minutes go by in a silence that was already uncomfortable to begin with.

“Hey, you said you wanted to talk. Remember? I’ll need to go away again the day after tomorrow. It might be awhile. And Max tells me you’re being released next week. We can talk _now_. If you want.”

He’s not hungry either. “I… Carrie, I wanted to, yes. But something happened. I can’t. Not tonight. I need some time. To think, be alone for a while.”

Carrie sits up, her back ramrod straight. She eyes him with concern at first, which is quickly replaced by restlessness and palpable discontent.

Getting up from the table, she slams the lid of her salad box shut and looks at his untouched plate.

“I’ll go. Should I leave it here in the fridge outside for you? Take it to Astrid’s?”

Tough one. If he tells her to leave it, will it mean he will eat it alone, without her? If he tells her to take it, will that mean he’s ungrateful for her bringing it? Fuck, this is hard. How can something so simple be this hard?

He rubs his face with his palm. “How about you leave it here and we’ll have it tomorrow for lunch?”

“Fine.”

“Carrie…”

“Quinn, I get it. You’re tired. You’re sick. You’re upset. You’re sad. You’re having nightmares, flashbacks, fuck-knows-what. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He thinks how _‘fuck-knows-what’_ is a nice touch. Definitely a Carrie-worthy diagnosis. “So, basically, pathetic _and_ a hypochondriac,” he smirks, one last desperate attempt to break the tension.

It works. Carrie stops packing the food and sits back down, looking at him sideways, her head slightly tilted, her eyes thawing into a smile. _“Basically.”_

He sighs, a little relieved, but mostly tired, and runs a hand through his hair. “It’s been a fucked-up coupla days.”

Carrie crosses her legs and her arms, leaning back, a sly grin in the corners of her mouth. “So I’ve _heard.”_

He raises an eyebrow. “Max?”

“Saul.”

Ok, _both_ eyebrows. Plus a frown. _“Saul?”_

“Pfft, yeah, _Saul._ Your…” air quotes, “... _resignation request???”_

“Oh.”

“What the fuck, Quinn? I’m gone three days and I find out you’re quitting the Agency from Saul?”

“What did you tell him?”

“What did I… you fucking kidding me? _Nothing._ Which was and still _is_ the extent of _my_ knowledge on the matter.”

 _Yes, Carrie, it really is about you not being up to speed._ He squeezes the corners of his eyes. “It’s none of his fucking business anyway.”

“Yeah, well… he sounded worried about you. _Really_ worried. Did you know that your resignation request landed on the _director’s_ desk? Two days ago. Saul said they are processing it like it’s the most urgent matter of national security on the agenda. What’s _that_ all about? Did you ask for it to be expedited?”

Letting out a bitter chuckle, Quinn tilts his head from side to side and gives her a lopsided smile.

“Let’s say _asked_ …”

Carrie raises an eyebrow. “What did you do? Threaten Dar?” She means it as a joke, but he winces and her jaw drops. “ _Jesus_ , Quinn!”

“Ok, I didn’t threaten him _at first_ ,” he grumbles. Then adds: “I almost shoved him down from 11th floor… _then_ threatened.”

“Jesus, Quinn!”

He huffs a chuckle. “Yeah, you said.”

“Well, it’s still relevant. I mean… _Jesus,_ Quinn! What happened?”

He was going to tell her more, maybe even all of it, but the exhaustion is starting to take its toll, so he settles for the short version. Seeing her disbelief, he cuts her off before she has a chance to respond: "And you can't say _'Jesus, Quinn'_ again, ok?. Daily quota exceeded"

Fair enough. _“Shit,_ Quinn…”

“See, that’s just a fancy version. You can do better.”

Disregarding his joking tone, Carrie leans her elbows on the table. “This is not funny. This is some fucked-up shit, Quinn. What are you gonna do?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… do you really expect Dar to hold his end of the bargain? What if he comes after you? After Jules? Or Johnny?”

His eyes grow cold. “He won’t.”

“You can’t _possibly_ know that. Maybe not _today._ But what’s to stop him from getting back at you a year from now? Five years?”

“Let’s just say I was rather… _persuasive._ And if he does, I’ll h old up _my_ end of the bargain.”

Carrie falls back, a chill causing her to shiver. The gap between what she’s seen Quinn do and what she knows he’s capable of leaves much room for imagination. She stares at him, sitting across the table from her in his grey pullover and tricot pants. He’s the same old Quinn, the man she could trust explicitly, even when her own judgement failed her. Yet he isn’t. There’s a calm about him, too, a sense of peace, resolve.

She clears her throat. “So… what now?”

“You mean…”

“Yeah. What are you gonna do? And let’s assume that I’m _not_ asking _hypothetically,_ and that you _won’t_  be on your way to yet another shithole like Syria before the ink dries on your hospital discharge papers.”

His jaw twitches. Fair enough. _Score one, Carrie._ Her words pierce his heart, one by one, causing the old doubt to spill all over his thoughts. But he bites his tongue. Did he really expect anything else? Could he blame her for not buying it? He takes a deep breath and tells her about Astrid’s idea. He’d actually looked into several interpreter positions in Philadelphia today with Max’s help.

“Tell me that’s a joke. An _interpreter?”_

“Why not?”

“Because it’s _bullshit,_ Quinn. After everything you’ve seen and done, with _all_ your skills, your _training_ , do you really expect me to believe you would want to waste your time translating papers?”

He shrugs a shoulder, feeling the crippling anxiety settling in. “It’s a job.”

“It’s a _joke,_ Quinn. You’ll be bored out of your fucking mind before the end of the first day.”

He clears his throat. "So what's your point? Other than demonstrating the enormous amount of faith you have in me making it?”

“Faith, Quinn? Really? What are we, a couple of high school kids on top of the world? I _know_ you. You won’t last a day on the outside without a real purpose. You’ll just get that itch again, realize there’s only one thing you’re good at, and go back.”

“Carrie, what _real purpose?_ What do you _want_ me to do? Private investigator? Mall security? I just want a job, doesn’t matter _what_ job. Something to do from nine to five, so that I can put myself through school and have time for Johnny.”

“I’m not saying _don’t_ get a job. I’m just saying it should be doing something meaningful, challenging. Something that would keep you interested. So that you don’t go home every night thinking that you could be half way across the globe taking out the bad guys and keeping your kid safe.”

He feels his teeth clench, a muscle on his cheek twitching. The anger rises from inside in a volatile burst of blinding rage as he’s hit with the realization that she’s not just talking about a challenging job, about keeping him on the outside - she has a job in _mind,_ probably had all along, before she even came here. Carrie never rests, always five steps ahead. Whatever she has going on that she couldn’t tell him about on the phone, he has a feeling it’s about to become his one-in-a-lifetime _‘meaningful’_ job opportunity. Did he flinch? Did his eyes flicker? It doesn’t matter: Carrie saw an opening and she’s in. She hasn’t even told him what she needs him for, but she already has him right where she wants him to be. This is what she does - she’s a handler. She’s spent most of her life turning assets, exploiting weaknesses. You do that shit long enough, you can’t help seeing people as potentially useful commodities. He’s not angry with _her._ He’s furious at _himself._ Because he keeps making it easy for her, setting himself up. Whether it’s his sense of duty and obligation, his feelings for her, his fear of not making it in the real world, his love for his son - it makes no fucking difference to her: it’s a ticket, a leverage.

He folds his arms on his chest. “Cut the crap, Carrie. What do you want?”

She stands up slowly, leans over the table, her weight on her palms, and hovers over him. “Go to hell, Quinn. _Fuck_ you.” She stares him down for a long moment, her eyes dark storming oceans of hurt and fury, then breaks away and heads for the door.

“So, no job offer?”

Carrie stops in her tracks as if his words stabbed her in the back. She swings around. “Is that what you think of me?” Her face twitches and winces, and by the time she’s standing over him again her voice is choked into a growling hiss. “That I’d _use_ you? After everything you’ve done for me, everything I’ve seen you go through? What kind of a _monster_ do you think I _am?”_

He expects the familiar waves of guilt and remorse to wash over him, making him retreat, feel a pinch of doubt and compassion squeeze his heart. Instead, his eyes bore into hers. “Really, Carrie? The moral high ground?”

She’s taken aback, abashed, speechless probably for the first time in her life. For a long while she says nothing, just stares at him, trapped in the brutal steely blue truth, with no place to hide. The lump in her throat is so dense that she barely manages to swallow around it.

She sits back down, takes a deep breath, steadies her voice. “You’re right,” she says. The pause that follows is more of a reprieve, their eyes still locked together, silent words passing between them: bare, raw honesty, everything they never spoke of. “I’ve let you down before. I’ve used you. I know that. But not this time. This is different.”

“So there _is_ a job.”

“Yes. Well, _no._ Ok, yes. But not _exactly.”_

He chuckles. “Yeah, when you put it like _that,_ it _definitely_ sounds challenging.”

Carrie huffs through her nose. “Look, if you want to do it your way, take the interpreter position, whatever else you had planned… It’s your life. I have no right telling you what to do. And it was shitty of me to say that you won’t make it.” She pauses, looks at him expectantly.

“Yeah, it was.” Probably not what she wanted to hear, but they’re past the bullshit.

“Fine. Fair enough. But Quinn, you _know_ I’m right. Maybe not about you _going_ back, but about missing it. I’ve been there, remember? Two years ago I was _exactly_ where you are now. I got out. I wanted to have a normal life, for me, for Franny. I took a job where I could use my experience, my skills, I was chief of security, working for one of the most influential people on the _planet._ I was home every day in time to pick up Franny from kindergarten and I was there to have breakfast with her every morning. I had a man in my life, one of the kindest, most caring people I’ve ever met. I mean… it doesn’t get more normal than that, right?”

He thinks he knows where this is going. “The point, Carrie.”

“The _point_ is, it was never enough. None of it. Like there was a void inside me just waiting to be filled again. Then all this shit goes down: the Russians, you coming after me, the attack… I know it’s fucked-up, but for the first time in two years I felt _alive_ again, in my element, doing what I do best, living on the edge. And I realized you can’t just shut it off, the thrill, the need to be on top of things, to _be_ there.”

“See, Carrie, that, right there, is where you’re wrong. _You_ can’t shut it off. _You_ need to be on top of things to feel that you’re living. I _don’t._ I’ve been doing this shit for fifteen years now and all it makes _me_ feel is that I’m _dying_ inside. You know, the _opposite_ of living. All those things that you said weren’t enough for you, I can’t _wait_ to have them. I want to wake up in the morning and go for a run, leave my phone at home, knowing that I don’t have to worry about being called away. And as I run, I want to think about what I’ll have for breakfast, what I’ll wear to work, and what I’ll do with my son when I come home. I’m fine with translating papers, Carrie. I’ll mop stairwells if I have to. I’ve _done_ my share of meaningful and challenging. I’ve missed almost nine years of my son’s life, and the only challenge I’m looking forward to now is making up for that.”

“Quinn, I get it. You want a life, you want your family back. Believe me, I _do_ know what it feels like. I’m not saying give it all up. This thing that I wanted to talk to you about… You know what went through my head when they first approached me? You. What you said to me outside the house where Javadi murdered his wife and his daughter in law. You said that you don’t believe in it anymore, that nothing justifies the damage we do. Well, what if I told you that you can help undo some of it? Ok, maybe not _undo,_ but at least stand on the _right_ side for once?”

Quinn arches both eyebrows. “On the right side? When were we ever on the _wrong_ side? Jesus, Carrie, you make it sound like we were spying for North Korea all this time. I never said I didn’t believe in the cause, I still do. I just don’t wanna do it anymore.”

“Ok, look…” The decision comes fast: quick weighing of pros and cons against the fact that this is the man she trusts with her life. Carrie reaches into her bag and takes out a thick dossier, held together by a comb bind. “I know I’m not making much sense, not without context. Here.” She places the brief on the table between them. “I didn’t have time to run it by her yet. Saul called me when I was on my way back to Germany. I was going to talk to her before even mentioning any of this to you.”

“Her as in…”

“Elizabeth Keane.” Carrie swallows, pushing the dossier towards him. “This is her campaign’s entire National Security policy.”

His eyes flash with concern. “You wrote that.”

“Yes.”

“Carrie…”

“Just… read it, ok? I don’t have to tell you that I’m in _no_ position to advise a presidential candidate on those matters…”

“Putting it _mildly.”_

Carrie inhales sharply. “The point is, other than Keane, her campaign manager and me, you’re the only person who knows.”

“Wait, Saul doesn’t know?”

“Pfft… you’re fucking kidding me, right? He’d _flip_ if he knew. This is not exactly the CIA dreamland, alright? That’s why I want you to read it. Because this is what I mean when I tell you that we could stand on the right side, be part of a change, be able to influence things on a larger scale.”

“Ok,” he nods, flipping through the pages. “I’m assuming you don’t want me to read _all_ of it. I’m not even sure I should. Whatever is in this brief, I’m not joining a presidential campaign, Carrie. In _any_ capacity.”

“Quinn… just _read._ The highlights. Everything we’ve talked about, over and over, all the wrong choices…” She firmly places a tip of her finger on the brief. “This is the _right one._ The _only_ right one.”

The right choice that the CIA won’t be fond of. _That_ should be fun. He skims through the pages, covering the main topics. Carrie paces the room, and the clicking sound of her heels gives away her excitement and impatience. When it gets too distracting, Quinn waits for her to walk by, grabs her wrist ,and pulls her into the chair, grumbling a slightly amused “Sit.” She smiles, takes a deep breath, and manages a composed demeanor for a whole minute before her foot begins tapping restlessly, soon joined by her fingertips against the table surface.

He’s barely to the middle, when he slowly lowers the brief onto his lap. He feels the panic taking hold as his heart rate quickens and the blood drains from his face.

“Carrie, this is bad.”

She stops tapping and raises an eyebrow in bewilderment. _“Bad?_ How is bringing our troops home and ending the war bad?”

“Carrie, for fuck’s sake, you’re smarter than this.” He slides the brief across the table and points to it. “This is _not_ ending the war. This is starting a whole new one.”

“How do you figure?”

“How do I… If Keane goes forward with this policy, ISIS or the insurgents in Iraq will be the _least_ of her problems. She’ll have a war at _home_ on her hands, and you’ll find yourself right in the middle of it.”

She purses her lips. “You have a _better_ idea?”

“It’s not about whose idea is better, Carrie. It’s about you putting yourself in the middle of something that’ll blow in your face harder than _anything_ before.”

“Quinn, nobody knows I’m advising her. Whatever the outcome, I’m clean on this.”

“Really, Carrie? Clean?” His voice jumps. “You’re not _nearly_ this dumb. Keane is not running to become a head of the PTA committee. She’s running for the office of the President of the United-Fucking-States. If she goes down, you’ll go down long before she does. You’ll lose your security clearance, you’ll be scrutinized, maybe even prosecuted, if not _worse._ You’ll have people protesting in front of your house. The house where you live with your _daughter,_ for Christ’s sake. This is not some posting in some shithole in the Middle East. This is _home._ And whatever shit goes down, it’ll follow you everywhere. You _and_ Franny.”

“Not if we make a bulletproof case. And that’s why I need _you_ . Because of everything you just said. You were _there,_ boots on the ground, you know this shit better than me, better than _anyone._ You _know_ I’m right. Or at least you know it’s a step in the right direction. And, I mean, _worst_ case scenario - Keane loses the election.”

“No, Carrie. _Worst_ case scenario is Keane _wins._ Because if she wins with this National Security campaign, she’ll win by a couple of thousands of votes. It doesn’t matter how well I know this shit, it’s not _me_ that you need to convince. She’ll be telling millions of grieving wives, husbands, parents, children, that their loved ones fought and died for _nothing._ Right or wrong, it’ll tear the country apart.”

“Whoa…” Carrie ducks her head back, her eyes a mix of puzzlement and ridicule. _“Way_ to blow things out of proportion, Quinn. When is this country _not_ tearing itself apart? At least this time it’ll be for a good reason. We’ve done _nothing_ except make it worse, and not just for _us,_ for _everyone._ And all we’re getting back are body bags, and _more_ war. And we’re just supposed to sit back and do nothing? Is this the world you want to raise _your_ kid in?”

“Maybe not. But you know what? At this point I’m just trying to concentrate on _raising_ him, on actually _being_ there. I’ll deal with the world when it comes knocking on my door.”

“So this is it? You’re giving up? You don’t think it’s worth fighting for?”

“Oh, I think it’s worth fighting for. You want me to say you’re right? You _are_ right. This is what _should_ be done, and probably _will_ be done at _some_ point. I’m just done fighting, Carrie. The only reason I’m still sitting here talking to you about it is because I care for you, and for Franny, and I don’t want you to get hurt. Because if you don’t walk away from this, you will. Both of you. And _nothing’s_ worth that _._ Not to me.”

“You think _I_ don’t want to stay home and be there for _my_ daughter? Quinn, she’s one of the reasons I’m doing this. Because as _nice_ as it sounds when you say you’ll deal with the world when it comes to threaten _your_ little piece of heaven, you _know_ this’ll just get worse. In ten years, when Johnny is eighteen years old, do you want him to be drafted? Hold a rifle? Instead of going to college? Taking road trips? Because this is most likely what’ll happen if _somebody_ doesn’t stand for it.”

Quinn squeezes the corners of his eyes, then rubs his face with the palm of his hand. His chest feels tight, constricted, burdened. The exhaustion gives way to grief, the inescapable and the inevitable tugging at every string of his heart.

“Carrie, this is getting us nowhere. I can’t stop you. I followed you when you asked me to, even when I didn’t agree. I could never change your mind.”

“Well, I’m asking you again _now._ And I’m not asking for _me._ Quinn, this is actually important. Probably more important than everything we’ve _ever_ done. It’s bigger. Bigger than you, or me, or what we want.”

“No, Carrie, it’s not.” He exhales slowly, leans forward and looks deep into her eyes. “This is probably the most unpatriotic thing I’ll ever say. But I don’t give a shit. You said that I’ve been in my kid’s life for five minutes. And it’s true. But, Carrie, I want more. You see, I don’t think about what Johnny’s life will look like ten years from now. But I can tell you for sure what I _don’t_ want it to be like a year or five years from now: I don’t want my son to sit there and wonder what could possibly be more important to his father than him. I don’t want him to think that I’ve chosen some cause, no matter how great, over being in his life. So, you do what you gotta do. I told you what I think. I won’t tell you how to live your life.”

Carrie falls back against her chair, head slightly tilted sideways, a shimmering waterfall of her hair cascading onto her shoulder. He feels tears burning their way from his heart to his eyes. He sees her just as clearly as he did all these years ago when he first met her: a bright light, lost in the darkness, a lonely sail seeking the storm.

“So, it _is_ a no, then,” she says, her voice steady, but not quite. There’s a barely noticeable tremble that wrenches his soul.

He swallows. “It’s a no.”

“To everything.”

“Yeah.”

Carrie doesn’t move for a while. Neither does Quinn. The silence is not awkward anymore, it’s just there, spreading around them. Her arms are stretched forward, an imaginary bridge connecting her to the table between them. He watches the fingers of her joined hands fidgeting slightly, then covers them with his palm.

“It’s getting late,” he says softly.

She jerks out of her thoughts, shakes them off and smiles. “Yeah, I should go.”

“Carrie, this doesn’t mean…”

“I know.”

It won’t be easy, not for a while.

“For what it’s worth…”

“Yeah.” She starts to leave, then turns around. “I guess that _talk_ that you wanted to have…”

He looks are her long and hard as if waiting for her to figure it out on her own. After all, he’s seen her solve bigger mysteries. When she just stares back, he slowly shakes his head.

“I think we just did.”

 

 

 

It’s past three in the morning when he finally peels himself from the chair and slowly gets up. He looks around and lets out a muffled chuckle: Carrie’s right, the room is a mess. It feels bigger, emptier.

He crosses over to his bed, with one determined motion shoves the pile of clothes to one side, picks up a random pair of pants and starts folding. He takes his time. He wasn’t always a slob. There were times when he lived alone, when he kept his place spotless and organized, ready to bolt any minute. He takes a roll of black plastic bags that Julia had left for him to gather his laundry, sorts through the clothes and stuffs the ones that need washing into a bag.

Ok, these are not _his_ pants. He pulls on a leg sleeve and fishes out a small pair of dark blue jeans, then digs deeper and finds the grey t-shirt with a picture of Chewbacca in front of a large print of Millenium Falcon. He remembers finding them in the bathroom the day Johnny changed here before they went to movies. He was meaning to give them back to Julia. After short consideration, he folds his son’s clothes and puts them into his half-packed bag, the only thing he’ll take home when he’s out of here. He’ll wash them himself, at home.

He makes a mental note to ask Julia what fabric softener she’s using. After all these years, he still sniffs the laundry that she brings back from Astrid’s. He puts his travel bag back in the closet and stands there for a long moment. So there won’t be a family. Not with Julia. She’s made that clear. But there will be a home. Sometimes Johnny will stay the night; he’ll be responsible for washing his clothes, making his dinner, getting him ready for school. He feels a light tingling spread from the base of his neck to his chest and shoulders, breaking the tension, relaxing his muscles. He smiles.

As the pile of mess on his bed gets smaller while the stack of neatly folded clothes grows, his mind begins to clear. There’s a void now, a reminder of what’s been lost, but it’s also a space to be filled. Before he knows it, it’s already splashing with joy, anticipation tinged with hope. Much lost, much more to gain. He puts the clothes away, makes his bed, stacks the cards and secures them with a rubber band. Leaves the chess board where it is. For now. It’s not a mess, it’s an unfinished game.

Checking under the bed, he sees a small bluish silhouette. Johnny’s Mr. Spock action figure. The first few attempts at propping Mr. Spock on his night stand end with the sneaky vulcan tipping over. The base plate is chipped. Nothing that a piece of transparent medical plaster won’t fixed. After gluing the Enterprise science officer to the surface, he lifts a warning finger: “Stay.”

He picks up his phone, checks the messages. Nothing from Julia or Johnny: they are probably still sleeping after the flight. New conversation with Leonid: seven pictures of his family, one of Leonid next to the stove, holding a wooden spoon dripping with jam. One notification from “The High Council” group chat: _“Carrie has left.”_

He opens the private conversation with Max, checks the ‘last seen’ timestamp and shakes his head in amused disbelief. Holy fuck: _“Last seen at 2:47 AM”._

-Do you ever sleep?

The ‘last seen’ line is replaced with ‘online’, the check marks turn blue.

-I thought you wanted some time alone

-I’m over it

-Impeccable timing

He can’t argue with _that._

-Busy?

-Finishing an algorithm sample in Python that I promised Johnny

-So it has to do with Johnny. That’s all I got

-Lol. Also listening to Astrid snoring. Did you know she snores?

-Yep

-Oh. Right

He can’t see Max, but he knows he’s blushing.

-Yep

-Did Carrie come to see you?

-Yeah

-Talked?

-Yeah

-She left the group. So I figured… Not good?

-No, it was good. I think. She needs time

His eyes fall on the table. The paper bag with the food she brought is still there. He sighs. Always the last word.

-You hungry?

-I could eat. What've you got?

-A burger, french fries and a salad

-Works. On my way. Coffee?

-Sure

-Chess?

-Yep

-You got it

-Thank you. See you soon

He gets the chess clock, arranges two chairs across the board, sits down and rubs his palms together. He feels confident, daring, even a little silly. A thought comes to his mind, making him smirk. He’s just slapped his fucked-up life with a checkmate. He can take Max.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NikitaSunshine,
> 
> It feels weird to have this one done, doesn't it? I mean, all these months that we didn't touch it, but I don't think we had a single phone conversation where this chapter didn't pop up in one way or another. It was like a whisper in the corners of our minds, just waiting to be done. I think we had like... 3-4 versions, at least in parts? I can see them all happening. But I'm glad this one happened. And it wouldn't have happened if it weren't for you being the voice in my head. I keep hearing it..."would take this out... maybe..." or (my all times favourite) "(:".
> 
> Thank you, for everything, again.  
> Back to bunnies??? Much bunny love!!!
> 
> Gnomecat,
> 
> What can I say... Now I'm tempted with the plane letters in the sky... God we're cheesy and romantic. I can't have enough of it. And yeah, we will only have happy chapters from now on and we'll stretch them foreverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....
> 
> Love and happy cat emojis with huge heart eyes!!!


	17. NullPointerException

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or... when a programmer tries to sort through the matters of the heart. (:
> 
>  
> 
> **_NullPointerException_ is a RuntimeException. In Java, a special null value can be assigned to an object reference. NullPointerException is thrown when program attempts to use an object reference that has the null value.**

**Three weeks later. August 2016, Philadelphia**

How does one go their whole life without ever stepping foot in a police station? He pushes his glasses higher up on his nose and lets his eyes follow the facade of the tall building all the way to the top. Talk about a needle in a haystack. He probably should have called first, at least find out if she was working. You’d think that he intended to surprise her, but he’s not really that type. Although, in all fairness, lately he’s begun to wonder if he even _is_ a certain type. And if he is, has he changed? Or had he always been like this but never realized it?

People change. People change other people. They find friends in places they’d least expect. They become confidantes, suddenly privy to someone’s deepest thoughts, fears, hopes, pains. He’d never been that, to anyone. He was always the silent type, fading into the background, just there to do his job. One of his girlfriends (ok, one of the girls he once hooked up with) referred to him as the ‘cable guy’. You know? One of these guys who come and go and nobody bothers to ask their name, or remembers what they look like the moment they leave your house once they’ve got your ESPN working again. Probably not the most _encouraging_ remark a girl could casually throw at you in the morning while getting dressed. But hey, he doesn’t remember _her_ name. So, fair is fair.

The point is, he’d lived his life in the shadows, out of the spotlight. And it suited him just fine, thank you. Talking to people never came easy, ever since he was a little boy. Back then, phrases like ‘somewhere on the spectrum’ weren’t very popular. Maybe he is. Maybe not. It’s not like he’s going to get himself diagnosed _now._ And it’s not like he is at a complete loss at understanding people or their emotions. A lot of the times he can tell that he’s needed, but isn’t really sure what to do about it. It doesn’t happen very often, people needing him, that is. Or maybe it does, but they don’t show it, or he can’t see it. The thing is, it’s probably for the best. Because when he _does_ realize somebody needs him, sees him, seeks his company, he’s unable to walk away. He often wonders if these attachments mean more to him than they do to other people. Because he knows that if (or rather _when)_ they lose interest in him, move on with their lives, he’ll be left with a void that’ll never close completely, whereas they will probably forget he ever existed.

Is that why he didn’t call? Maybe. What does he really know about her? She’d always been nice to him, attentive. She listened when he talked (not that he talked a lot). But there was always this feeling he’d get the moment she entered the room: as if he was out of the shadows. Not in the spotlight that made him uncomfortable, but he was _seen._ He’d sit in the kitchen in Berlin and watch her cook. Usually she’d be the one doing the talking. But with time, he found himself sharing more, telling her what he thought, even joking. Joking is especially hard for him. He can do it in messaging. In fact, he finds it easier to talk when the only thing staring back at him is his phone screen. Which was probably the reason he ended up sending that email to her, like a coward, when he knew she’d be past passport control, in the boarding area.

Watching her leave, standing at the airport and seeing her and Johnny disappear, mixing into the crowd, was one of the hardest things he ever lived through. And that includes losing Fara. He didn’t have the same feelings for her, but they felt just as strong. From the moment he met her, he knew she was one of those people that you would never want out of your life. He remembers Astrid asking if he wanted to grab a bite to eat. He excused himself and said that he needed to go to the men’s room, when he really just needed to be alone for a bit. It was if something that anchored him to the real world had suddenly vanished and he found himself afloat, lost, unable to re-enter the atmosphere. He sat down on one of the chairs in the departures terminal, feeling as detached from the world as he had been before he came to Berlin. The words that he wanted to say to her, this whole time, just ripped through. He often finds himself wanting to say something but biting his tongue, feeling too shy, too unimportant, too quiet for people to even notice him, not to mention think him capable of offering valid input. But this time, he wasn’t going to let that stop him. He typed _“Dearest Julia,”_ and the rest just wrote itself. It was a short email, but he’d finally said it, all of it.

The night before she left, he watched her cry herself to sleep. She came back to Astrid’s, checked on Johnny, typed something on her phone (probably a message to Quinn _),_ sat on the couch, folded in two, covered her face with both her palms, and just started crying. He sat next to her, put an arm around her. She turned into his embrace, hid her face in his sweater, and kept crying. He didn’t know what to say, or if she even wanted him to say anything. And he didn’t know what to _do,_ either, so he just stayed. She didn’t tell him what happened - she didn’t have to: he knew those tears, that feeling. He’d known loss.

When he sent her the email, he didn’t expect her to write back. Days turned into weeks, and he’d almost forgotten about it. But then, one morning his phone buzzed, and there it was. It made him ponder how many things are lost in electronic communications. He had a feeling that if it were a pen-and-paper letter, it would be smudged all over by dried tear marks. Many things that she wrote he already knew, or at least deduced. But it wasn’t so much _what_ she wrote as it was _how_ she wrote it, how she saw that man, deep into what and who he really was, what she felt she owed him, what she knew he deserved, and how far she was willing to go for him to have that.

He’s here despite himself. He didn’t call ahead because he wasn’t sure what he would do if she said she was busy, what he would read into that, or if he would ever find the courage to come or call again. It’s always been easier for him to just remain in somebody’s life than it was to be the one to reach out. His life is a quilt, a patch blanket, made out of people and places, with deep gaps in between. Usually, he stays as long as he feels he’s wanted, then slowly fades away. But not this time, not with these people. He’s out of the shadows, and the light is addictive. Being needed, being trusted, being seen, what it means to him, they’ll never be able to understand. Or maybe they would, because maybe they know, and maybe that’s why.

“Max!!!” He’s not even through the door yet, barely out of the elevator, when her voice rises above the loud hum of background noises: chattering, fax machines, phones ringing, notifications buzzing.

It’s a huge room, cramped with desks and cubicles, long line of windows on one side, doors to small offices and interrogation rooms on the other. It’s packed with people: some wearing police uniforms, some civilian clothes. She calls his name so loud that for a moment everyone seems to stop and turn towards him. Talk about the spotlight. He feels his face becoming so hot that he’s expecting the skin to melt off any minute now.

Through the haze of embarrassment he scans the room and sees her making her way over. She’s running, skipping around people on her way, and she doesn’t stop until she knocks the wind out of his lungs. He hugs her back, the polyester of her suit jacket soft and silky under his sweaty palms, and he lets the tears wash away the unease.

“God, I’ve missed you,” she sniffs into his t-shirt.

“Me too,” he manages, hearing his own voice as if from afar.

Julia pulls away, looks at him, misty-eyed and smiling. Her hand comes to rest on his cheek, cool and soothing against his flushed skin. “You’re back! When? Where are you staying? In Philly? How long?”

Max finds himself chuckling despite the embarrassment. He’d forgotten about her habit of asking a million and one questions when she gets excited. “Flew in yesterday. To Philly, both of us. We’re staying... You know Leonid, right?”

She laughs, delighted. _“Yeah,_ I know Leonid! Did Peter survive the reunion?”

“I think they settled it over the phone. There was some yelling, but Quinn’s still in one piece. Last time I checked.”

“They’ll work it out. Oh Gosh, I wish Johnny were here. He can’t stop talking about you!”

Max reaches into his back pocket, pulling out his phone. “Yeah. I’m getting about a thousand pictures from Cub Creek every day.”

“Tell me about it. He’s having the time of his life. I just hope he’s not sending the ones with his favorite tarantula pet to his _father.”_

“Uhm… why?”

Julia rolls her eyes. “You’re staying in the same house with him? You’ll find out.”

“Huh…”

“I know, right?” She laughs, placing a hand on his upper arm. “Listen, I was in the middle of something. I gotta go back. Are you in a hurry? It’ll take me about twenty minutes to wrap it up, half an hour tops. I could find a quiet spot for you to wait. I’m starving, was about to grab some lunch when I’m done.”

“Sure. I’m free.”

She grabs his elbow with a borderline ecstatic “Yay!” pulling him towards the side of the room with all the doors, when a tall figure blocks their way.

Julia starts to introduce him, but the man interrupts before she has a chance.

“So, the legendary Max at last!”

Why do these men have to be so tall? Max’s eyes hit the third shirt button from the top and trail upwards from there. Oh, and also, that’s what they’ll write on his headstone: _Legendary Max, died of embarrassment at the age of forty one._

“Andrew Stevenson,” the man says. “Jules and JJ been talking my ear off. All these stories and pictures - it’s like meeting a rockstar in the flesh.”

Max shakes his hand, his palms cold and clammy again, which makes him squirm inside even harder. “Hello, Sir…” He knows the name. It’s Julia’s superior officer, head of the Cold Case unit. He’s not sure how he’s supposed to address him. Ranks always confused the shit out of him. On one hand he’s a civilian, on the other hand…

Stevenson takes his elbow and nudges him to follow. “C’mon, I’ll take you to my office. It’s quieter there. I’m heading out myself, so you can wait for Jules away from all this madness.” He motions with his head to the crowded department. “Coffee?”

Oh no, no more coffee. He already had three cups of Leonid’s _‘extra strong John special’_ this morning. Unlike _some_ people, one espresso in the morning is enough to hold him through the rest of the day. Sometimes, if he plans on staying up late or work at night, he has another one in the afternoon.

“Maybe tea,” he mumbles, unable to find a comfortable spot to rest his eyes on. “I can make it myself…”

He doesn’t get to make it himself. Two minutes later he’s standing in a rather spacious office. Stevenson opened the door, intending to follow, but was stopped by one of the uniforms on his way in. For some time Max watches as the two men speak, flipping through documents in a dark brown folder with letters and numbers on the cover that he can’t make out from this distance.

He uses the opportunity to scan the place. On the far side of the room there’s a large window that takes up the whole wall, right behind a massive oak desk which occupies most of the real estate. There are some file cabinets on the right. Not all the drawers are closed, and Max fights the instinct to push them all the way in. Partly closed drawers and cabinets make him nervous. But then, if he started to fix everything that was out of place in this office, he’d probably spend the entire day here. The desk is a pile of scattered papers, manila envelopes, brown file folders, computer wires and… well, it’s a mess. There’s another lower cabinet behind the leather chair to the left - the only tidy spot in the entire room. His curiosity tramping the anxiety, Max steps closer to get a better look at the five framed pictures on top of it.

There’s one photograph of three people standing close, wrapped in an embrace: a young woman with long dark hair and smiling green eyes, a boy around four or five years old, and a tall man standing just behind them. The man is Stevenson, for sure, only much younger. Much, much younger. Max’s best estimate puts him around sixty now. He couldn’t be more than thirty in this picture, probably even younger. He wonders if the other two are his wife and child, except that the photograph is awfully old, and the two of them aren’t in any of the others.

There are two pictures of Johnny: one is quite recent, while in the second he looks about six years old. Then there’s a picture of Julia and Stevenson: they both look younger, but not by much - probably taken no more than a couple of years ago. He recognizes the place - it’s here, in this office, though looking much tidier in the picture. Max remembers Julia saying something about the Cold Case unit being a relatively new department. This was probably taken right after it opened. They are both holding two sides of what appears to be a nameplate, the kind people put on their desks. Max squints his eyes and brings the photograph closer. Nah, he can’t make out the letters, but it’s definitely not a name. He has a type of eidetic memory, and suddenly gets a flash of that same plate peeking out from the pile of mess on the desk.

Before he gets a chance to turn around and find it, his eyes stop on the last picture. Now, _this_ is a surprise. It’s a photo of a much younger Julia in a police uniform, probably long before she made detective. She’s sitting on the stairs. Right behind her, there’s a smiling young man with one arm wound around her shoulders, a half-eaten sandwich in his hand. Julia’s fingers are curled around his forearm, her chin resting on top of it. She looks even smaller, more fragile than usual, wrapped in the circle of his crossed legs.

“Recognize your pal?” Max jumps at the voice behind him.

He does. “Quinn?” he says with an unnecessary question mark in the end.

“Yep.” Stevenson takes the frame from his hands and looks at the picture with a warm, wistful smile. “AKA Johnny. I called him J. Could never get used to this Peter Quinn business.” When Max nods, unsure what to say, he flicks the frame glass with his fingers. “I love this motherfucker, always have. Going to see him tomorrow afternoon. It’s been almost six years. We met in DC once or twice after he and Jules… you know.”

“Yeah.” Max can’t tear his eyes from the young happy faces staring at him from over a decade ago.

Stevenson sighs and places the frame back on the cabinet. “They were good together. Real happy. Always laughing, crazy about each other. Fucking fucked-up world.”

 _Still are,_ Max thinks, with a new wave of confusion washing over him. He’s not dumb. Ok, he might be a little _challenged_ when it comes to understanding relationships, but he knows what he saw in Berlin. They are still all these things: good together, happy together, laughing together, and he’s pretty sure about the _crazy about each other_ bit, too. It’s the laughing that used to get him every time. He’d known Quinn for awhile, albeit on and off, before he got to Berlin. But he’s _never_ seen that man so much as _smile_ for real. The first time he heard him laugh he was so startled that he almost spilled his soda. And it was more than what Stevenson said: they just fit together, like two pieces of broken glass. There was always the feeling of ease and joy around them, like a soft fluffy cloud, and Max remembers wishing he could stay and listen to them talk and laugh forever.

“What happened?” he asks, and immediately wishes he hadn’t. It’s none of his business.

Stevenson’s features harden, he shakes his head. “I can’t even talk about it. Not my place to, either. Jules probably wouldn't mind telling you. I dunno about J. Last time I saw him, he barely spoke three words. The man was broken beyond repair - cynical, abrupt… Jesus, this life fucked him over. I mean, Jules too. But he got the worst of it.” He picks up the photograph of Johnny and half-turns it towards Max. “This kid… wasn’t an accident. J _wanted_ a family. He wanted to marry her. Had an engagement ring and all. I’m not sure she even knew. Jules never cared about those things, used to say she didn’t need a fucking priest telling her she would spend the rest of her life with J. But he wanted to. That’s for sure. And when she got pregnant… Ah, Jeez. I couldn’t wait for them to become parents, they would have made a hell of a home for their kids.”

Max feels himself getting uncomfortable again, eyes darting from place to place. He’s an invader, an uninvited guest, trespassing into a world that doesn’t exist anymore, having opinions about things that don’t concern him. It’s disrespectful, to both of his friends. He should never have asked. He shouldn’t even be thinking about it. The problem is, he can’t stop. Ever since that night when Julia cried on his shoulder, and later when he’d found what was left of the “happy” Quinn in the hospital park, he keeps wondering, trying to solve it, find a way back. And until today it was just in his head, so he was _kinda_ ok with it, but now it seems to be bursting out.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” he mutters, averting his eyes.

“Nothing wrong with asking. Shows you care,” Stevenson says, pointing to a pair of office armchairs on the other side of his desk. “Anyhow, make yourself comfortable. Jules will be done soon. And hey,” reaching to shake Max’s hand again. “It’s really nice to meet you. JJ’s crazy about you, won’t shut up. Showed me all the pictures, all the little code things you taught him. We should all get together from time to time. My place or Jules’s. Or maybe even J’s when he gets one.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Max nods absentmindedly, a little dismissive, but mostly resigned, a familiar wave of finality hitting his senses: that’s what they all say, and that’s what he always says to them. But they never do get together, or meet up for lunch sometime, or grab a beer, or go out for drinks. This is where he knows it’s over: people walk out of his life. He stopped expecting them to come back a long time ago.

He’s still wallowing in his self pity, when he notices Stevenson holding his phone and looking at him expectantly. “Your number?” he asks, and Max realizes he missed it the first time around. They exchange phone numbers, each quickly updating their contacts list. “Great.” Slipping his phone back into his breast pocket, Stevenson squeezes Max’s shoulder. “So, listen. Tomorrow I’m meeting with J around… six-ish? I’d love to see the both of you, but you know: been a long time and… frankly, I don’t even know what to expect.”

Unsure where this is going, Max shrugs. “He’s… alright. I guess,” remembering Stevenson’s recent remark, “Talks more than three words now. For sure.” _Sometimes,_ he wants to add but thinks better of it.

“Right. But no, my point is - I’m pretty much free afterwards. So I was thinking, if J’s ok with it, we could all go grab a beer or something. Or meet at my place. Leonid too. Haven’t seen the nutcase in months.”

“Yeah…” Thrown about a mile out of his comfort zone, Max clears his throat. “Beer is… sounds… Yeah.”

“Ok then. Gotta run for real now. I’ll let you know when and where.”

He’s gone before Max has a chance to thank him, or say _anything_ for that matter. He looks around then finally settles in one of the chairs. Realizing he’s still holding his phone, he unlocks it to find Stevenson’s contact information staring back at him. Barely three minutes and the entire digital footprint is synced. Max chuckles. He often wonders if people have an idea how much they give away simply by sharing their phone number. It’s not just a small world anymore - it’s a crochet of intertwined lives. These are not digits or email addresses - they are a sketch of who you are drawn in bytes instead of a pencil. Take Andrew Stevenson, for instance. He’s on WhatsApp (seriously, who isn’t these days?), he’s on Telegram as well (not that common, but not that surprising either), he’s on Google Plus (duh), he’s on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Skype as well. To sum it up - he’s normal.

Normal is _not_ something Max is very good at. It has nothing to do with the fact that most of his contacts in the last five years or so were related to his contractor work with the CIA, which, come to think of it, despite having a somewhat devastating effect on his life, was rather short-lived. The truth is, even his work in the private sector often involves a certain amount of discretion. A lot of the time he’s working at night and sleeping it off during the day. Come to think of it, his stay in Berlin was the most ‘normal’ he remembers in years, despite the circumstances.

But then, yesterday morning they landed at JFK, and just like that, as if someone flipped a switch, everything became normal. It began with Leonid meeting them at the gate. Max watched two friends who hadn’t seen each other in nine years reunite with a silent embrace. A lifetime ago they served together, killed together, lost friends together. But then they locked their arms and they were just two men, greeting each other at the airport after a long absence. Following a firm, heartfelt handshake, Leonid hugged Max as well. It was brief, yet not quite: for a long moment Max found himself swaddled in what felt like warm solid steel, taut and unyielding, protective and grateful at the same time. He had never met Leonid before. And under any other circumstances he would’ve been weirded out and embarrassed within an inch of his life. But here’s the thing: not only _was he not_ _,_ but when Leonid pulled away, the dearth of his arms around him was like a cold gust of wind, as if missing a well worn coat on a chilly day.

It's funny, but it's the same feeling he gets when meeting most people in Quinn's life. Well, this part of his life anyway. He’d be lying if he said he was never intimidated by Quinn. Hell, the man used to creep the bejeezus out of him. If he had to guess, he’d say it started to change the day he and Virgil broke into Quinn’s apartment and found the picture of Julia and Johnny. Some things you just can’t unsee. Ok, maybe you can’t really unsee _anything_ you see _,_ but certain images reshape the reality, become a prism, tapping into a single color and creating a rainbow. After that day, Max could never look at Quinn and not see a father, a man with a past, an untold story. He still doesn’t know the story. It’s like a book that he’s wanted to read for a long time. He hasn’t even started yet, just skimmed through, but he loves the characters.

Back at the airport, Leonid quickly announced, leaving no room for discussion, that they would stay at his place for the time being. Chatting and laughing good-naturedly at his own jokes, he grabbed their luggage, and ten minutes later they drove off to Philly.

The next shot of normalcy was in the car, when Quinn made his first phone call since arriving on US soil. It wasn’t to Julia or Johnny, but to some guy from Penn named Morrie, who it turns out was his former faculty advisor. Max is not easily shocked, but hearing Quinn talk about academic requirements while spitting out the names of the courses he’d taken left him simultaneously dumbfounded and impressed anew.

But seriously, nothing slaps you with ‘normal’ like walking into Leonid’s kitchen at eleven at night to find two special forces veterans in their boxers and tank-tops, drinking tea with jam and screaming at each other in three different languages while discussing the validity of physics in Verne's ‘From the Earth to the Moon’.

With a short vibration, a pop-up window jumps on top of Stevenson’s contact page, breaking Max out of his reverie and making him regret that he wasn’t thinking of a million dollars.

-You’ll be so proud of me

He feels a wide smile stretching and wrinkling his face.

-You didn’t

-I did too!

Jesus, he even _talks_ like Johnny now.

-Tell me

-I can send the links

Great. The cave man has learnt how to share from his browser. Max chuckles and shakes his head.

-And the last analog man on Earth has been successfully digitized. Craigslist?

-Yep. And fuck _you_

...And learnt how to italicize in WhatsApp. Two links follow. Feeling like a proud older brother, Max checks out the newly purchased furniture. Not bad: one twin bed for Johnny, nothing fancy, but with little bookshelves built into the headboard and some drawers for storage on both sides; one convertible couch which appears to be rather comfortable and in pristine condition, no visible tears. Great prices too.

-Looks good. When can we pick them up?

-Right now, if we want. Leonid gets off at four. So as soon as you finish your “errand”. Say hi

-Will do

The long pause that follows makes him consider calling instead. But then again, he knows better by now. Digital world has an etiquette of its own: as long as your status says ‘online’, the person you’re talking to can safely assume you’re there, giving them the time they need. He waits for Quinn to reply, sliding a finger against the screen from time to time to prevent it from going to sleep.

Another minute and a half passes. Then:

-Question

-Shoot

-Got these pictures from Johnny. Would forward to you, but can’t make myself touch the screen. Are they allowed to bring their pets home when it’s over?

It’s a good thing that Max’s tea has cooled down and that his phone is waterproof, because he snorts into the cup causing tea to spray through his nostrils, sprinkling the envelopes on Stevenson’s desk. Frantic to salvage the situation, he grabs a handful of tissues from the box on one of the file cabinets and pats the droplets dry before wiping his phone.

Back in his chair, he goes for revenge:

-Tarantulas are actually great as pets. Very little care, not expensive. I used to have one. They are soft and fluffy too

-Second question: you _do_ realize how many ways I know of killing someone in their sleep, right?

Good point. _Retreat, Max, retreat. Fix it now._

-I don’t think they are allowed to take pets home, no

-You have no fucking idea, but you lie like a true friend

-Nice to be appreciated. I guess we’ll find out in a week. Any chance we can get you desensitized? Shock therapy? A handful of spiders on your pillow every morning?

-Any chance we can make you walk up to a girl on the street and ask for her phone number?

-Gotcha

-ETA?

-Need about an hour and a half. Lunch

-See you then

He doesn’t ask for details, and Max doesn’t elaborate. He couldn’t if he wanted to. These lighthearted moments are fleeting as it is. They last for a while after Quinn talks or messages with Johnny; they are short-lived and further apart in between. Most of the time he’s quiet, his expression hollow, eyes pale and barren. Max lets him be.

Quinn’s never been particularly chatty, not about himself, anyway. Or maybe just not with Max. Max’s never been particularly nosy or pushy. They talk about Johnny, and even then only when Quinn initiates it. They talk about chess, math, physics, jobs, buying furniture online, whether Max will go back to Virginia or stay in Philly. They even talked about Carrie a couple of times, including Quinn laying out the outline of their last conversation.

They never talk about Julia, not a single word since she left Berlin. And yet Max knows that it’s _all_ been about Julia: every sleepless night, every hollow stare, every twitching muscle. Sometimes it’s more subtle, quiet, resolved. Most of the time it’s not. Grief has a way about it, Max knows. It comes in tides of shear wrenching nothingness, takes a hold of everything you are, weighs you down.

The first couple of days after she left, Julia would call or message: in the morning, to ask how he’d slept, in the evening, to wish him goodnight. Max saw the effect just once - it was enough. He saw the hands gripping the phone so hard that the nail beds turned blue, saw the eyes lighting up at every word on the screen as if willing it to be drawn in, saw every reply not typed but rather carved carefully out of a solid chunk of pain, and finally, when it was over - he saw what a man must look like when he’s being gutted alive.

Max hated himself for doing it, but later that night he called Julia and asked her to stop. Just stop. Stop calling, stop messaging, stop everything. He apologized for speaking out of place, for interfering. She said she was grateful he did, admitting that she wasn’t sure what would be less painful. She didn’t want to take away the comfort of Quinn knowing she wasn’t gone from his life for good. Max felt like crap: he’d read her mail, he understood her decision, and admired her greatly for doing what she did. But he told her that she’d made her choice, and she needed to give him time to deal with it. He reminded her that in a couple of weeks they’d be forced to see each other every day when Quinn comes over to pick up Johnny, and that perhaps they should both use this reprieve to come to terms with their new situation. She never messaged again. Quinn never asked why.

Max sighs again. He’s been doing it so often lately that it’s become second nature. His eyes lose focus and drift across the wall until the saturated blue of the late summer sky finally scatters his stare over the rooftops of the city. He’s never been to Philadelphia before. It has a character: blue collar, very proud, a tad abrasive, but all-in-all good-hearted. He wouldn’t mind staying and hanging around for a bit, and he knows he’s welcome. Quinn didn’t _really_ ask him to come. And Max didn’t _really_ offer to go with him.

They were playing chess on the last night of Quinn’s stay in Berlin, in Astrid’s kitchen. For the most part, it was one of their more quiet games. Quinn had gotten better with time, so _much_ better in fact that Max almost ended up losing once. _Almost._ The ‘quiet’ games were more vigorous, intense, no talking, quick thinking, a step-dance of figures clacking against the wood, each followed by a muffled tap on a chess timer. Usually they’d stop the timer if one of them had something to say. But discussing Max’s coming to Philly wasn't that kind of a conversation. Without lifting his eyes, Quinn had added Max’s captured rook to a single line of other casualties along the right side of the board, slammed his palm against the timer and said, “You think maybe…”. Max castled his king with the remaining rook and shrugged, “Sure, why not.”

Smiling at the memory, his gaze still skimming the urban view, he reaches for the paper cup. Instead, the back of his fingers graze the sharp angle of a metal object. Not unlike a well written code, the human mind often works in loops: you can get distracted by a million different things, but the slightest trigger will lapse it to a thought that was cut in the middle. Before he even realizes what it was, Max’s eyes dart to the pictures again, then to his hand, already pulling the nameplate from under the pile of documents.

 _“Evil triumphs when good men do nothing,”_ he reads. A soft chuckle trembles its way through his chest: nice sentiment for a homicide division working on murders that lay unsolved for years, sometimes decades. As it happens, it’s one of his favorite quotes. If not _the._ Except it’s not the _correct_ quote. He shakes his head, more to himself, his inability to let go of these little inaccuracies. It’s a good thing he’s too shy to correct people, not that it ever stopped him from doing it in his head. The original quote is _“_ _The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”,_ of course. But in all honesty, the shortened, more popular version never bothered him that much.

“Hey! I’m good to go. There’s this…”

He jumps up at the sound of Julia’s voice and turns around to find her at the door, cut mid sentence, eyes fixed on the nameplate he’s still holding. He quickly slides it back to its original place.

“Good to go?” she asks, forcing a smile.

Max grabs his unfinished tea, throws it into a trashcan by the door, and follows her outside. “Yep. Anything good around here?”

“Yeah, I usually eat downstairs,” she laces an arm through his elbow and lifts smiling eyes to his face. “But nothing _nearly_ good enough to treat a guest of honor like you. I’m taking you someplace _really_ nice. It’s a fifteen-minute ride. You’re not in a rush, right?”

“Not at all,” he smiles back, holding his arm closer to the side of his chest. “Lead the way.”

“So, how do you like Philly so far?” she asks when the elevator doors close behind them.

He studies her face before replying. The dark shadow that he’d seen slide across it when she looked at the engraving is still there. Should he ask? Let it be? Sparing him the anguish, Julia holds his stare for a long moment, touches the tips of her fingers to the side of his face and stands on tiptoe to press her lips to his cheek. “It’s a long story,” she says with a sad smile. “I’ll tell you some other time. I promise.”

Despite himself, despite the people around, he gently frees his arm and puts it around her. She lifts a wordless grateful look to his face and leans her head against his collar bone.

 

They choose a table outside. It’s a beautiful summer day, even for Philly - the humidity is unusually bearable. Of course, the _bearable_ is a relative term, but compared to the suffocating hell of yesterday and last night, it can be given the benefit of the doubt.

Max is still browsing through the menu, having barely covered half of it. So, when Julia puts hers aside, he can’t help a quizzical stare.

“What?” she laughs, waving him off. “I’m _famished._ And I know this place.”

“Yeah… but you only checked out the dessert section,” he notes, fidgeting.

Julia’s grin gets that sly, almost childish hue that he’s grown very fond of. She leans over the table and whispers secretively. “They make the best chocolate cake in the world. It’s so good I swear I have wet dreams about it sometimes. Shhhh.”

Max turns crimson red, nearly chokes on his own tongue, but manages a forbearing chuckle nevertheless. “Is the ravioli any good?” he asks, having trouble narrowing down his choices: it _all_ sounds (and looks) very good.

“I don’t think I’ve tried it here. It should be. Stevenson _loves_ this place. I usually just…”

“...have the chocolate cake,” Max completes her sentence.

“Well… yeah. But hey, if you want, we can order different entrées and share. That’s what…”

 _You and Quinn used to do,_ he finishes in his mind, when she stops abruptly. He says nothing and goes back to reading the menu, all the time picturing a huge elephant on the table. If there can be an elephant in the _room,_ why wouldn’t there be one on the table, right? He’s right there, blocking their view, tinging every thought.

They both place their orders and sit in silence for a few minutes. The bistro is pleasantly secluded, away from the noises of the main road. For a while, the only sound is that of silverware clanking against the china and the low humming of quiet conversations around them.

Finally, Julia reaches across the table and places her hand, palm up, in front of to him. He places his own on top, feeling her fingers wrap around it, her thumb aimlessly stroking his knuckles. “Max,” she mutters, hardly even a breath, and her eyes well up as her sad smile begins to quiver.

He covers her hand with his other one and squeezes lightly, suddenly realizing how little he knows about her. He has no idea where she was born, what her family was like, how or why she ended up on the force, where she lives, what she likes doing in her spare time. Come to think of it, he doesn’t even know if she was ever married, if she had long, meaningful relationships, other than the one with the elephant on the table. And yet he feels closer to her than he has been to anyone in a long time. Her letter had opened the door to something so personal, so intimate, that it’s become the essence of her in his mind, a secret portal to a carefully guarded world.

“He’s ok,” he hears his own voice, words just jumping out of his mouth, betraying his conviction to _not_ bring it up.

“Yeah?” Her eyes flash with something resembling hope, which is quickly replaced by deep sadness, and soon after - resignation. She nods, shaking off the melancholic air. “Good. I’m glad. And I’m _really_ glad he has _you.”_

 _It’s not me that he needs._ Max sighs, not letting go of her hand. “How are _you?”_ he asks tentatively, as if maneuvering around a line that she probably wouldn’t want him to cross.

“I’m… ok, I guess. I mean, _work_ helps. Takes my mind off things. With Johnny not here… you know… the house is empty…”

“Johnny will be back in a week,” Max says cautiously, studying her face and hoping she understands that it’s meant as a consolation.

The fingertips of her free hand fidget uneasily on the table surface. “I know,” she exhales. “It’ll be… I dunno. It is what it is. We’ll take it one day at a time, I guess. Work out a schedule for him to spend time with Peter.”

“What about you?”

“What _about_ me? You mean… seeing him?” She looks into the distance, through and past Max, before focusing on his face with a slight shake of her head. “Look, I’m not fooling myself: it’ll be tough for a while. You _know_ how I feel. But he’s Johnny’s father. I can’t… and I _won’t_ keep him from coming just because we’re in a weird place right now.”

“No, I mean what about _you?”_ Max spits out, feeling so dizzy just from saying these things (that he promised himself he never would), that it makes him physically nauseous.

“Max… we’ve talked about this.”

“Not _really._ I’ve read your _letter._ But we never really _talked.”_

“Well, what more do you want me to say? You know how I feel, you know what I did and why. What’s changed in the last three weeks?”

“For once, he’s home. And he’s _out.”_

“I _know._ Max, what are you getting at?”

What _is_ he getting at? His mind is like the paper mush in the Agency’s shredder basket - tiny pieces of thoughts and musings. Put together, they might’ve made sense, but in their current state they are nothing but a greyish pile of meaningless rubbish.

“He thinks you said ‘no’ to him,” he blurts out, realizing right away that he’s set himself up for an answer that he already knows.

“I _did.”_

He shakes his head as if doing so will cause the millions of puzzle pieces to randomly fall into place. “No, I mean - he thinks it’ll always be a ‘no’.”

Julia looks bewildered for a second, frowning. “I don’t understand.”

“Is that what you meant?”

“Is _what_ what I meant? Max, I said ‘no’, you know why. So does he. I _hope.”_

“Yeah, but did you mean it?” _Good one, Max. And that’s why you should never have meaningful conversations with people. Stick to messaging, always stick to messaging._

Julia’s eyes grow dark. “Seriously?”

“No. Ok yes, but that’s not what I mean.” _Getting more and more eloquent by the minute._

“Well it sure _sounds_ like that’s what you mean. What are you saying, Max? That I’m playing games with him? Hard to get? You of _all_ people should know better.”

He wouldn’t blame her if she stood up and left. Because he _does_ know better. He’s probably the _only_ one who does. But she doesn’t leave, doesn’t even remove her hand. Her eyes are pressed behind her other palm. He can’t say if she’s crying or trying to choke it back. He can’t say if she’s breathing, either.

“I’m sorry,” he laments, feeling his own tears welling up, overwhelmed compassion and hating himself for being unable to let it go.

Julia shakes her head, slowly uncovering her face and exhaling to steady her voice. Her fingers wiggle gently between his palms as she gives him a weak, teary smile. “No, Max, _I’m_ sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I know you’re just worried about him.”

“That… too.” Max lifts his glasses, slipping a thumb and index finger to squeeze the corners of his eyes. Seriously, he should stop, drop it. He doesn’t even know what the point _is,_ let alone how to _get_ to it.

“Max.” Julia leans forward, stroking his wrist. “What is it? What’s going on?”

The waiter comes back with a basket of sourdough bread, a small plate with butter, and a can of lemonade. They break apart, unlinking their hands, both falling back in their chairs.

“I don’t know,” Max says grimly when they are alone again. “I just… don’t get it. I mean, I do, I understand. What you wrote - I understand. But I still don’t get it. I know, none of my business. But I can’t…” huffing, mostly at himself, “can’t _stop._ It doesn’t make sense.”

He looks at her with a wordless plea, as if willing her to see through the debris of his confusion, realizing that what makes sense even _less_ is what comes out of his mouth. To his surprise, or maybe not, Julia gives him a slight nod and leans forward again, extending both arms now. He takes her hands, finding solace in their steady, reassuring warmth. As if on cue, his mind begins to clear, the static noise in his head subsiding.

“Ok,” she says with a soft, encouraging smile. “Break it down. You said Peter thinks it’ll always be a ‘no’. What did you mean?”

Max clears his throat, leaning on the table as well. “I mean he thinks you don’t want him in your life. And you never will. Like... it’s _over,_ for _good._ There’s nothing he can do to change that.”

Unable to stop her face from twitching, Julia lowers her eyes to their joint hands. There’s a faint twinkle as her eyelashes tremble and the sunlight hits the watery film underneath. She stifles a bitter sob behind pursed lips, drawing a sharp breath to keep it down. “Max…” she mutters in a wobbly, strained voice as her gaze slowly returns to his face.

His eyes turn bleak, washed bare by a realization that hits like a furious wave, knocking some pieces into place, while scattering many others over his racing mind. “Because that’s what you want him to think,” he shudders.

“No, Max. Because that’s what I meant.”

“He has a job now. Starts next week. Real job, full time. Not bad pay. An apartment. He bought furniture today.”

He can’t stop, spitting out facts that seem random but somehow connected, misplaced, plucked out of some argument he’s having in his head: with himself, with Julia, with both of them. Julia squeezes his hands, forcing him to fix his eyes on her as her thumbs slide along his fingers. “Max, you know it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything. It’s great, and it’s _important._ To _him.”_

Finally a direction, a lifebuoy. Max grasps hard. “But to you, too. It _could_ be. For a _family._ Stable income, good job, building his life. He’s not nobody anymore.”

Julia’s eyes flash with indignation, her voice jumping. “He was _never_ a ‘nobody’. Maybe in his own eyes, or to the Agency. Not to _us._ Max, it wasn’t a _test._ It’s not like I told him to get his shit together and then we’ll try. If anything, that’s exactly what I _didn’t_ want him to think.”

“But if he keeps his job, finishes studying...”

“Max,” taking a deep breath and leaning even closer, “It’s not about the the job. Or how much money he makes. What if we get married and he _loses_ his job? You think I’ll leave him because he can’t provide for his family? You think it really matters to me if he keeps his job for three years, or three weeks, or three days? I’m almost thirty seven years old, he’s almost forty. If I thought we could have a life together, right now, I wouldn’t wait a _day._ And a part of me wants to do just that.”

“But… then why?...” Lost again, frustrated and irritated with himself, he lets out a loud puff of air and shakes his head.

He remembers her letter. Eidetic memory - he knows it by heart. It’s heartbreaking, but it makes sense. The logic is solid. Yet it’s not. Something is missing and it’s driving him insane. In his mind there’s an image of a lonely wagon, the rails stretching into the horizon on both sides. Nothing’s wrong with the image: it’s a train wagon, it’s supposed to be on the rails. Or maybe… it’s not what’s _in_ it, but what is _not._ How did it get there? What train was it a part of? In what direction was it traveling? It’s missing something… it’s like… What _is_ it like?

And why today? He got her letter last week. It made him sad, true, but it didn’t confuse him. If anything - the raw, despairing truth of it brought a sense of closure. But then they got Stateside, and everything changed. As if the wagon is still there, the rails look the same, but the…

His eyes light up. Through the haze of racing thoughts he sees Julia’s smile gets wider, more encouraging. He tightens his grip, swallows. The wagon and rails are the same, but everything else is _not._ Context. Different context. No, not different - there _is_ none. It’s... He holds his breath, grabs that thought. The scenery doesn’t make sense, because there’s no context. No, it’s more than that. No context means it’s not a variable. But it _is._ Except it can’t be used. Because it’s… _null._ He almost cries out. _Null context._ Yes! He lets go of the image, the wagon rolls slowly away and it’s gone. Hit reset, Ctrl+c - end program. Launch a new one. Laptop, screen, Notepad… No, not Notepad - code editor. Functions on top of functions, variables, logic. _Logic._ The logic - it’s solid, but _not._ You can have a well thought algorithm and a flawless code, but…

“NullPointerException,” he blurts out before realizing that the fact that it finally makes sense to _him,_ doesn’t necessarily mean it makes sense to anyone _else._

He’s flushed, so hot that it feels as if he’s about to burst into flames. Hard as he may try, he would never be able to describe to another person what it means to him - having something finally make sense. He wants to jump onto the table and break into a dance. Instead, he smiles slyly at Julia, who swallows a mouthful of lemonade to prevent it from spraying through her nose.

She snickers. “All that effort… and it’s finally so _clear.”_

Their entrées arrive, and, slightly squirming inside, Max watches as Julia effortlessly shuffles half her beef brasato with pappardelle onto his plate, and just as masterfully scoops some of his butcher’s ragù with fusilli onto hers. It’s not so much the sharing that doesn’t bode well as it is the touching of foods that weren’t originally served together. Under different circumstances, it would make his skin crawl. Right now, excited beyond belief about his new epiphany, he’s too at ease to care.

As he watches her dig into the pasta, his smile turns wistful, almost dreamy. It’s all connected now, in his head: the sharing of entrées, the picture in Stevenson’s office, the final puzzle. The images vary, but they are all include both of them: laughing as they exchange food, walking on the pier, kissing under the stars. In all of them, she’s wearing her police uniform, and he has on a khaki t-shirt and a pair of lightly colored jeans with a noticeable tear on the right knee. Much like most of the programming languages he uses, his imagination is quite object-oriented. Every image is merely an instance, a variation of the same photograph.

“An error. In your logic,” he continues, as if five minutes hasn’t passed since he blurted out his _first_ pearl. With her mouth full, Julia raises both eyebrows and circle-motions with her fork to get him to keep talking until any of it begins to make sense. “Null pointer exception is a fatal error which causes the program to crash.”

Julia swallows, smirking at him fondly. “So… my program crashed?”

Max chuckles around his own fork, removes it from his mouth and meaningfully points it in her direction, bobbing the tip up and down. “Yep. Null context. Deprecated library. Or outdated platform. Either way.”

More circular motions. “Go on.”

He gets comfortable, balancing the upper weight of his body on his elbows and pushing up his glasses. For once, he has no problem going on. He’s in his element. Her entire letter, every point she’d made, is part of the stack trace in his mind - the sequence of events that led to the failure in executing the code. “Everything you said,” he starts, waiting for her to give him an encouraging nod. “In your letter. See, to me it’s like an algorithm. Anything can be an algorithm. As long as it has some internal logic and progression of events. Your algorithm is very good, concise, has strong structure, closes up nicely. You could write a code, a program. It could even compile. But then you’d try to run it, and it would crash. Right?”

Catching his expectant stare, Julia takes a sip from her drink and smiles. “I’m gonna go with… _right._ Although, I’m _kinda_ offended - my code crashing and all… but we’ll settle that score later.”

“Well, _any_ program can crash. It doesn’t mean it’s _bad._ If anything…”

“Max, I was kidding.”

“Right.” Back on track, down the stack trace. “Your problem is you’re basing your entire logic on something that doesn’t exist anymore. It’s like, every variable is the same - he’s the same person, you’re the same person, you’re at the same point even… maybe - but the premise, the context _isn’t_ the same . You’re assuming that if something goes wrong, if it doesn’t work, he’ll go back. But things have changed. The circumstances are different. For both of you. You know what you could and should offer, and what you should not. And, regardless of what _you_ do, he will never go back.”

“Max, you don’t know that. Nobody knows that. Not even he does.”

“Well… you’re wrong. He’s out, Jules. It’s over. He’s building a life for himself. From scratch. And it’s not for you. See, that’s one of your faulty points - he has no _reason_ to build it for you, he thinks that door is closed. For good.”

Julia considers it for a moment, then slowly bobs her head. “Ok. It’s a good point.”

“Right?” Max feels the exhilaration spilling into his bloodstream like gallons of living fire. “You know Morrie?”

She coughs, nearly choking on the food, and reaches for her lemonade again. “Morrie’s still alive?” she croaks, half-bemusedly, half genuinely shocked.

“And kicking. Still works at Penn, too. Twenty minutes after we landed, half an hour tops, Quinn called him to set up a meet about picking up where he left off ten years ago, finishing the courses he needs. And when he hung up… I’ve _never_ seen him like that. He looked like a kid on Christmas morning, waiting to open his presents. Yesterday he was jetlagged as hell, we _both_ were. But he dragged me to the mall to buy a suit so he could go to the job interviews he’d set up back when we were still in Berlin. He went to all three. And they _all_ called back, by the way. He actually got to chose the position he wanted most. He’s starting Monday.”

Tears spring to her eyes and roll down her face. “Did he…” she takes a deep breath to steady her voice. “What color suit did you get?”

Max smiles, reaching across the table to place a hand on her wrist. “He looked _awesome,_ Jules. Nervous as hell at first. But the moment they called him in… confident, solid. You wrote that once he finds a purpose, he’ll stop at nothing, give it everything he’s got. That everything is a mission. It’s true. This is probably the biggest mission of his life. But it’s different. It’s not for you, or for Johnny. It’s not for _anyone_ else _._ It’s for him. The mission is to _have_ a life, to stay _out._ There’s no bubble, no illusions. He knows it’ll be harder than anything he’s ever done. But he’s all in.”

Julia wipes her face, laughing. “So… my code crashed because…”

“Well, the _code_ doesn’t crash, a _program_ does…”

“Max…”

“Right.” He clears his throat, leans forward even more. “You’re basing your logic on a context that doesn’t exist anymore. One of your key variables… cannot be instantiated. It’s null. Everything else just… tumbles down around it.”

Julia’s quiet for a while, swirling the pappardelle around her plate. “I thought about it. A lot. Every single day, ever since I got back,” she admits, staring into the distance. “It’s funny how you put it: _it’ll always be a ‘no’._ Because that’s what I keep coming back to.” Her eyes stop on his face. “Can there really be a ‘no’? Ever? With someone who means that much to you?”

“I dunno,” Max shrugs, shaking his head. “I’m… the last person to give _anyone_ romantic advice. Ok, _Quinn’s_ the last, but I’m not too far ahead. All I know is that when I got your letter, I understood. But then we got back, I met all these people, saw that picture of the two of you… and it stopped making sense. Crashed. In my head, everything has to make sense, or have a reason to… not make sense. I guess… that’s your reason.”

“Max, I’m scared. If I fail him again… if he ends up… I can’t watch him go down that road again. It’ll kill him. Sooner or later. I’d rather…”

“Then don’t. You don’t have to say ‘yes’. Just stop saying ‘no’. He’ll figure it out. You both will. All I’m saying… think about it.”

“Ok, I will,” Julia promises, giving him a teary-eyed smile. “Just Max… with him… don’t… about my letter… it’ll just...”

“Seriously, Jules. I barely made it through a conversation with _you._ And you actually _talk._ He’s just being… you know, his typical silent and stoic drama queen.”

She grins. “Yeah.”

Seeing the waiter approach with their desserts, Max takes her hand again. “You wrote that you owe him. That he’d given up his life for you to have yours. I guess… maybe one happy life is payback enough.”

 

Half an hour later they part with a long embrace next to Julia’s car before she drives back to the station. She offered to give him a ride, but he politely declined. Maybe he’s being paranoid, but he doesn’t want to push his luck. She’s in a better place than she was when they first got here. But Quinn’s… well, as good as can be expected. For _Quinn,_ that is. Johnny won’t be back for another week. They both need the time apart.

Two blocks down the street, he takes out his phone and opens WhatsApp. Halfway into the first sentence, he long-presses delete and launches the dialer instead. For a change, he’s in the mood to talk. And if Quinn isn’t… well, fuck him.

“Hey. Done?” he hears a rather calm and cheerful voice.

“Yep.”

“Want me to pick you up?”

“Sure.” Max gives him the address.

There’s a momentary silence followed by a soft huff of laughter. “Jule have her chocolate cake?” So, he knows the place.

“Yep. Speaking of which - a _good_ friend would have _warned_ me.”

“You _didn’t…”_

“I thought it was like… a sharing thing… like she did with the main course… I take my spoon and…”

“Oh _fuck!”_

“She said if I don’t remove my arm, she’ll tear it off and beat me to death with it.”

The laughter gets louder, happier. “Yeah, she wasn’t kidding.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NS,  
> Did we beat our record of re-writing chinks of a chapter with this one? I honestly can't remember anymore! How many times was it that we 'liked' it... but not? You get into Max's head, it's all a shredder mush, I guess. But in the end, with some banging of my head against the wall, and your encouragements (not to mention your will to edit new parts after you had just finished editing the removed ones), it's here. Love you, you bunny!!!
> 
> GC,  
> You got snippets of lots parts that are not there anymore. One day we should go back to them and file them together, make some sense of all the things that were right, but not quite. Thank you for being such a great support during my melancholic bits. Love and hugs!!!


	18. Event Horizon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **In general relativity, an _event horizon_ is a boundary in spacetime beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer. In layman's terms, it is defined as the shell of "points of no return". Any object approaching the horizon from the observer's side appears to slow down and never quite pass through the horizon. The traveling object, however, experiences no strange effects and does, in fact, pass through the horizon in a finite amount of proper time.**

**August 2016, Philadelphia, 3 days later**

This will not be his home.

He knew that the moment he stepped in two days ago to take measurements for the furniture. The key he’d been carrying around for years unlocked the door just fine. Yet it felt as if he had to force his way in, barge and trespass into a world that stopped existing a long time ago. This apartment is the only property he’s ever owned. It belongs to him. But he doesn’t belong here. A place where he’s been coming to hold onto the only real life he had, it now seems illusory - the most false glimmer of all.

It’ll have to do for now, he knows. Johnny’s coming back in four days, and he won’t show his face at Julia’s without having a place to take his son in case he wants to sleep over. Before they brought up the furniture, he’d spent a day and a half scrubbing and cleaning almost three years worth of dust. It doesn’t have much inside - one twin bed, one convertible couch, his old beat-up arm chair, a small desk, and a used refrigerator - but it looks more inviting than any other place he ever lived in on his own.

Nadya, Leonid’s wife, made a matching set of curtains, bed covers and a bunch of scatter cushions for him. She brought them over after he’d installed the brackets and the rods above the only window, and insisted on putting everything in place herself. To complement, she stuffed one of the drawers under Johnny’s bed with crocheted tablecloths and napkins like the ones she caught him admiring in their house. He didn’t have much furniture to decorate at the time, so she put a runner over the bookshelf headboard of Johnny’s bed, and threw some napkins on the window sill. He watched the place come alive with color and delicate snowflake patterns. Really- _really_ not his kinda thing, but what are you gonna do? Argue with a Russian woman? Under the watchful eye of her ex-special forces husband who was the only man to ever kick the crap out of you? And that’s with just one working arm? Um, no, thank you. He’d rather live surrounded by crocheted garments. Seeing his appreciative, albeit slightly concerned and befuddled stare, Nadya laughed and promised that she’ll take care of washing them until he gets the hang of taking care of things himself.

Later that day, he and Max went shopping at the supermarket down the street. On their way, he messaged Johnny to ask him his favorite foods. Pushing a cart with groceries along the aisles was an experience on its own. Neither he nor Max had the first idea about sizes, quantities or shelf lives of the things on his shopping list. Luckily, Leonid is a pro. And now his kitchen is full of cereal boxes, rice crispy treats, and other snacks; and his fridge is stuffed with vegetables, fresh fruit, milk, eggs, pudding cups, packs of Go-GURT, string cheese, juice boxes and chocolate milk. In a futile attempt to ‘butch it up’, he made sure to grab two six-packs as well. Although, he didn’t look all that _manly_ on the picture that Max snapped of him sliding the beer onto the lower shelf with a piece of string cheese dangling from his mouth.

He smiles at the memory, flipping to his back and opening his eyes. It’s past 3AM, his first night in the apartment. He still can’t sleep. It’s been a long and tiring day, with all the moving, assembling of the furniture, and unpacking. Last night the three of them came back to Leonid’s place way past midnight, after spending the evening at Stevenson’s, drinking beer, grilling meat in the backyard, smoking crappy cigars and talking. That should have taken care of the jetlag. And for Max it seemed to do the trick - he was out like a light on Johnny’s bed before his head even hit the pillow.

But it’s not just the jetlag. He hasn’t been able to sleep for more than two hours straight in the last three weeks. It’s not the night terrors, either: the Prazosin is doing its job. Which is not to say his dreams have become a pleasure cruise.  He’s not even sure they _are_ dreams, nor can he tell for certain if he’s really sleeping. At night, he drifts in and out, his consciousness wandering along the edges of reality, shaping the surroundings into surreal images that stay with him for hours afterwards. He usually wakes up with a jolt, a tightness in his chest spreading rapidly to every muscle in his body, spasming and stiffening.

Much like his sleeping pattern, his thoughts are a striped zebra ornament as well. He can go hours feeling resigned, knowing and accepting the fact that Julia was right: it’s been over for years; there’s no going back, and there never will be. It gets better when he talks to Johnny: he feels calmer, more resolved. The sound of his son’s voice works like magic, a soothing balm on the deep cracks in his heart. It gets worse at night, when he’s alone with his thoughts, unable to take his mind off the dull, throbbing pain. Whatever he did to numb it eight and a half years ago isn’t working anymore. And it’s not only because dragging himself back in, leaping into the next mission, is not an option. It’s just different, all of it: the way he loves her, misses her, needs her. The way he aches all over remembering how it felt holding her next to him when he kissed her in Berlin. The way he can’t stop imagining a life with her: not back then, but today, _now._

Sleep is out of the question now. He gets up quietly from the couch so as not to wake Max, and shuffles to the kitchen to pour a glass of water. The heat and humidity don’t make sleeping any easier. And it’s just the beginning - come September it’ll get much worse.

Force of habit drives him to the window. It’s what he’s done all these years, coming here after each mission. He’d dust, clean a little, and then spend the night just staring off into space, one hand on the large metal box containing all that remained of the life he once dreamt of. Absentmindedly, he places a palm over the lid. He needs to feel the ragged metal under his fingers as he traces the letters. It’s his portal, a secret door to a place that doesn’t exist anymore.

For once, he lets the pain be, wash over him. An unbroken stream of sorrow mixed with hope, an avalanche of grief barreling down the slope of exhaustion. His eyes begin to lose focus, the blur softening the world around like the effect of a watered down drink. And then, in reverse motion, it all distills, boils down to the single sensation of his finger trailing along the carved initials. A wave of sadness is followed by that of relief, exhilaration, joy. Because some things _have_ changed. And the box is no longer a reminder of what was lost, but a promise of what’s to come.

 _‘The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves, until one day there are none.’_ He frowns, flexing his memory once more in an attempt to remember the source. It’s been stuck in his head for weeks now. He’s usually better at this: he never forgets the book nor the author of a quote that is worthy of keeping. He’s been meaning to ask Leonid - the world’s leading expert on heartbreaking and soul-wrenching novels, not to mention sentimental quotes. When a certain phrase moved him, he’d recite it for days. Which is probably how it got stuck in Quinn’s head in the first place, only to resurface all these years later.

The thing is… the quote is wrong. The heart never dies. It may bleed slowly, painfully, oozing hopes and dreams. But the will to love, to give, is the damnedest thing of all. Because before you know it, your heart is filled anew, whole again with even more hopes, more dreams.

A light touch on his forearm makes him shudder. Jolted out of the stupor, he finds a barefoot Max next to him, two open beers in his hands. He quietly waits for Quinn to let go of the box and wrap his fingers around the heavily condensed bottle. Then, with a slight nod, raises his own.

“I need to sell this place,” Quinn says, tearing his eyes from the middle distance as reality reshapes around him.  

“Yeah.”

“You think we could…”

“Sure. We’ll take some pictures tomorrow morning, check out the comps, find a good realtor.”

“Max…”

“Hey… it’s nothing.”

Quinn places a hand on his shoulder, an iron grip of gratitude. “It’s not nothing, Max. None of it.”

“Ok.” Thankful for the darkness that conceals his flushed face, Max manages a lopsided grin, clanking his bottleneck with Quinn’s. “You’re welcome.”

They stay silent a while, perfectly comfortable. It’s not until Quinn catches Max’s puzzled look on the engraving that he lets out a soft laugh. “Crazy Badass Motherfucker Junior,” he explains the CBMJ inscription, watching as his friend’s frown dissolves into a smile.

“Jules?”

“Yep. I objected, I swear.” His grin widens. “Didn’t stand a chance.”

“She’s something, alright,” Max sighs, shaking his head.

“Yeah.” Gulping a mouthful of beer, he suddenly turns around, eyes scouring the walls. “We were happy. Crazy happy. Right here. Four years of borrowed time. None of it was real, Max. Not _lasting_ real. And I should’ve known.”

Max swallows, taken aback and a little wary. “I saw the picture,” he offers a chary counterpoint, and then, seeing Quinn squint in befuddlement, adds: “In Stevenson’s office. There’s a picture of you and Jules. On the stairs? With sandwiches?”

Quinn breathes a chuckle. “I didn’t know that.”

“It sure looked real.”

With a hint of a bitter smile, Quinn slides to the floor, tapping a vacant place next to him for Max to join. “I think that part _was_ real.”

Max moves his mouth from side to side. “Two days ago I had lunch with Jules. Don’t ask me how, but I ended up explaining something to her using RunTime fatal error analogies.”

Clearing throat sound. “Your point?”

“The point is… I’m pretty sure I was making more sense than _you.”_

They both laugh, clinking beers again. Quinn rubs his face as his head falls back with a soft thud. “I’m fucked-up. I need to sleep. Get my shit together before Johnny comes home.”

Max counts on his fingers: “Yeah. No _shit._ And… you _better.”_

“I’m seeing my new therapist tomorrow. Maybe I should… I dunno…”

“Clonazepam.”

“Is it…?”

“Oh yeah…” Max considers it for a moment. “Or Xanax.”

Quinn turns to face him. “You ever…”

“Yeah. Clonazepam for a short while. Xanax for about a year. It’s…” _What’s the word?_ “A ‘fuck-it’ pill.” Then, with a smirk: “So _you’ll_ like it.” Seeing a slightly raised eyebrow, he elaborates further, “It makes you feel like… _Fuck it all._ So… a ‘fuck-it’ pill.”

Quinn’s eyes soften and Max lowers his own. “Fara?”

For a while Max just scratches the old floor wood with the tip of his nail. “Yeah… well. Yeah. It was…” He huffs a stifled laugh. “Probably should’ve stuck with Xanax. As opposed to... say, _Meth._ But... well, you know.”

“No, I don’t. I should’ve… at least called. _Meth???_ Jesus... I’m a shitty friend, Max.”

“No… I mean… you were in Syria.”

That makes Quinn snort, close his eyes, and lull his head from side to side against the wall. “My very _own_ ‘fuck-it’ pill.”

“And we weren’t exactly… you know… friends.”

“Will you fucking stop making excuses for me?” Quinn elbows him in the arm. “We were _colleagues._ And I should’ve been there. At least asked how you were.”

“Well… you kinda were… there, I mean. You did… stuff.”

“What _stuff?”_

Max clears his throat and takes a long sip from his beer before answering. “Haqqani.” He levels his eyes with Quinn’s. “You went after him. I know it wasn’t _just_ for her, but… it felt… in my _head…_ that you did.”

Not just in his head. It wasn’t _just_ for Fara, true. But he remembers seeing them on the floor, Max drenched in Fara’s blood, holding the body of the woman he loved, butchered in front of his eyes. There was a lot of anger that day, blinding rage. But that was the moment he hit the point of no return.

Max smirks with an exasperated sigh, and pats Quinn on the arm. “Tell you what. Two… _incredibly_ eloquent dudes that we are… And… as much _fun_ as it is to take a trip down _that_ particular memory lane... I think we should probably settle for… you’re sorry, I don’t think it’s a big deal, but for the sake of argument I forgive you. Fully knowing you’ll still beat yourself _up_ for it, but _boldly_ hoping that one of these days you’ll get over your-drama-queen-self.”

Coughing as the beer goes down the wrong pipe, Quinn slams a fist into his chest. _“Drama queen???”_

“Oh crap, I said that out loud, didn’t I?” Seeing how exhaustion has thrown Quinn into a laughing spell, he shrugs. “Well… you _kinda_ are.”

“Like _when?”_

“Um… like _always?_ Quinn, seriously. You get this _look_ when you’re sad… like… _the world was on my shoulders and I failed it._ I mean, it’s one thing to own up to your own shit. But with you… it’s like… _everyone’s_ shit is _your_ shit.”

“When did I _ever_ have that look?”

“About ten minutes ago. Um… _‘None of it was real. I should’ve known.’_ I don’t know the details. But Quinn, you were forced to walk away, leave behind the woman you loved, your newborn child. Yeah, it was hard on Jules. But she’d be the first one to tell you that what was even _harder_ on her was that _you_ had to go back. That _you_ gave up your life. _Yeah,_ it was some _fucked up shit_ . But it couldn’t’ve been _all_ your fault.”

Quinn swallows hard, clenching his jaw and feeling the muscles on his face begin to twitch. _That’s the look,_ he almost hears Max’s voice in his head. “She got hurt,” he says, barely audible, then lifts the eyes to Max’s face. “Jules. Somebody beat her up. Made it look like it was meant for me. An assassination attempt. A warning maybe.”

“Jesus…”

“She was eight months pregnant. Almost lost the baby. I was away. I come back and she’s in the ICU…” His eyes grow darker, his expression hollowing even further. “It was Dar. I only just found out in Berlin. I was… at the time… there were two sensitive missions that I was on. When I submitted my resignation… I think someone put a hit on me. Dar knew… tried to convince me to stay. That didn’t work, so he went to see Jules. She… Well, you know Jules. She pulled her service weapon on him and almost threw him down the stairs. So…”

“He figured he’d scare you a little…” Max utters.

“Yeah. He made some kinda deal. Apparently. That mission that I was on… I wasn’t supposed to come back. Dar made a deal, promised _whoever_ was…” He draws air-quotes: “‘concerned’... that he’d convince me to stay. And… well, he did.”

Without another word, Max stands up, unceremoniously taking the empty beer bottle from Quinn’s hand. He walks to the kitchen and comes back with two more, popping them open. “That’s… some _shit_ , yeah,” he concurs, taking his place on the floor. “But that’s Dar’s doing, not _yours._ Sounds to _me_ like you were actually holding up your end of the bargain. You were getting out. Planning a family.”

“See, that, right there, is the problem,” Quinn leans his head back against the wall, letting out a loud puff of air through his nose. “I was _planning._ But I should’ve known better. I don’t know what I _could’ve_ done. But I should’ve seen it coming. I _knew_ that world, what these people were capable of. Jules didn’t. We lived like…” He takes a moment to find a proper analogy. A weak smile barely crinkles his eyes, yet somehow lights up his whole face. “You know Johnny’s favorite topic of conversation? Parallel worlds?”

“I’m gonna pretend that you _didn’t_ just ask a _nerd_ if he’s heard of parallel worlds.”

Quinn nods, “Fair point.” Then, shaking his head, “That’s what it felt like. There was _this_ world…” He looks around. “In this apartment. Where we lived for _real._ And there was _that_ world - the Agency, all those shitholes that I’d go to - that we both pretended was on a whole different plane of existence. Except, you know… it _wasn’t._ It was… a romantic notion, all of it. The thrill. Pushing through. Thinking that one of these days I might not come back at all. Like a pretend game.”

Max thinks about it for a long moment, quietly scraping the edge of the beer bottle sticker with his thumb, then shrugs one shoulder. “In your twenties… having _romantic notions_ is ok… I guess.”

Quinn stifles a laugh and shakes his head. “There’s no winning with you, is there?”

Max smiles, stealing a sideways look. “At least you’re…” he stops.

“At least I’m what?”

“Talking.”

Quinn squints. “You calling me a mute? That  payback?”

Laughing, Max clinks his beer with Quinn’s again. “Always said you were too smart. For an _analyst.”_ He winks, then remembers something else. “You know, I was the one who blew your cover, by the way. Well, Virgil and I, together. Broke into your place. Saul… I was the reason he went to see Jules. Probably scared the crap out of her.”

“She held her own,” Quinn manages a sad smile and shoulders Max. “And I knew it was you motherfuckers.”

They fall back into a comfortable silence, occasionally interrupted by the glugging sound of beer as one of them tilts the bottle, a distant honk of a car, and an on-and-off purring of the refrigerator.

“I got fucked-up dreams,” Quinn says after a long while that neither of them spoke.

“Nightmares again? I thought…”

“No. No nightmares. But… maybe worse.” He thinks about it, taking another look around. “That’s why I said… none of it was real. In my dream… I see that it wasn’t. Or _I_ wasn’t. Never belonged here.” He pauses, not so much to give Max a chance to respond as to put it into words. “I fall asleep… here… and it’s like going back in time.”

Max swallows, holding his breath. “The time you lived here?”

Quinn shakes his head. “No. The day I left.” He points to his convertible couch. “Jules was sitting there, on our bed, just out of the hospital. Still bruised all over. Almost nine months along. We both knew it was over. I had to go. I was standing by the door. No bag. Nothing. I hadn’t packed. Left everything behind. Just... She said _‘You should go now.’_ And I left. Turned around and walked away.”

Max frowns. “I thought… you were there when Johnny was born.”

“Yeah…” His breath halts on that single word, as if the memory breaks free, hits the solar plexus. The room is nearly pitch black, aside from the faint light from the street below. Despite the dark, Max sees his face drain of color, turning bleak and barren, his eyes paling, hollowing.  “I came back. The day she had him. I was watching. I wanted to... I just couldn’t stay away.” His voice strains, the veins and muscles along his neck bulging from the effort. “I was outside her delivery room. Never meant to go in, I just… wanted to be there, when…”

“Quinn…”

He turns, swallows hard, takes a moment to get his voice back. “You know how people… _women…_ in the delivery room… scream? I was sitting outside. Screams everywhere. I knew what room she was in. It was… quiet. She didn’t scream. My Jules, she didn’t… she cried. When she’d cry, when we were together, I’d go fucking nu ts, Max. I could never… ” He breaks again, his whole face twitching now, lips pressing hard as he breathes the anger and pain through his nose. “ Her sister was there. And her mother. She was... saying things. About _us._ The usual shit she’d give Jules. No wedding... Johnny being a bastard. Me bailing out. Leaving her alone. And Jule… she just cried. And I… it fucking ripped me open.”

“Jesus…” Max sets the beer on the floor, already half-blind from his own tears. “But you stayed.”

Quinn nods slowly, staring out into space, as the memory takes ahold completely. “I yanked the door. Kicked them out. And yeah, I stayed. Just the two of us. Until Johnny came.” The tremble of his mouth settles on a quivering smile. “Then… just the three of us. For a few hours. The only time there was just the three of us. Until Berlin.”

Max says nothing, unable to trust his own voice. He waits for his breathing to even out and goes for a tentative, encouraging smile. “Hey… I gotta show you something. Lemme get my phone…”

He’s back in a flash. Quinn sits up higher, looking over his shoulder as he shuffles the app drawer from side to side. “Hey, if it’s more tarantula pictures, I swear to God…”

“Hold on…” Max elbows him, relieved to see a resemblance of a real smile. “Did I install the updated apk?”

“The what?”

“Oh… here it is. Look.” He clicks on a weirdly shaped icon. It was supposed to be a vector representation of the Klingon Empire emblem, but was unfortunately entrusted to Max (who, in all honesty, did give Johnny a fair warning about his Photoshop skills). The application opens full screen. “It’s still in beta. His homework project. I gave him my old laptop to take to Cub Creek.”

The bright glow of the lit pixels reveals a stir of astonishment and awe. “Is that… Johnny’s? Quinn takes the phone, his eyes filling with joyful blue again as they fix on the single button in the middle. “Do I...?” He glances at Max, finger hovering over the screen.

Max winks, picking up his beer. “It says _‘Click me, Dad!’,_ so…”

The white background swirls away, replaced by a picture: Johnny on his father’s knee, Quinn’s arm around him, both looking serious, smart - playing chess with Max. The caption underneath reads ‘The Quinn Team kicking Max’s butt in chess’. Not that they ever _managed_ to. On top, in small font, there’s a hint: ‘Swipe for more’. Holding his breath, he does. There are many more: photographs, memories, funny captions. Some screens have more than one, arranged vertically, horizontally, or in a grid. The caption placement varies too.

“I was teaching him the different layouts in Android. Ways to arrange the views on the screen. This is his final assignment. He’s supposed to have it ready by the time he comes home.” Max points to the screen. “It takes _months_ for people who’ve never done any kind of development to do that. Tabbed view and all - his own initiative. I never showed him. He gets bonus points.”

The air rushes out of Quinn’s lungs in a burst of pride that nearly tears his chest open. “Jesus-Fucking-Christ, Max. This is… When did you even…?”

“In Berlin. He saw me working on something, got curious. I started with some easy stuff. He couldn’t get enough. He’s incredible. Good genes. Both sides.”

Quinn just shakes his head, unable to stop flipping through the pages. “All this? My Johnny?”

“Yep. From scratch. He sends me an update every day. Source code too. And Quinn...” He stops on one of the pictures: the two of them talking, arms idly laced, eyes locked together, identical dimples brightening their smiles. “It doesn’t get more real than this.”

Quinn doesn’t answer, still mesmerized. “Hey!” he protests, tightening his grip on the phone as Max tries to take it away and replace it with a beer bottle.

“I’ll install it on yours. You can play all day.”

“Fine,” he grumbles, reluctantly letting go. “But I want the updates, too.”

“You got it,” Max laughs, getting up again and heading to the kitchen. Dangling his empty bottle, he points to the fridge. “Another one?”

“Nah, I’m good. It doesn’t help me sleep. Just messes with my head. It’s fucked-up as it is.”

Max comes back with two glasses of orange juice and grumpily slides to the floor again. “Tomorrow we’re getting chairs.” He takes several long gulps. “And clonazepam for you.” Getting no answer, in a split-second drunken decision, he half-turns, crosses his legs and leans forward. “Look… about your dreams. You need to sleep. Really sleep. It’s been three weeks. You’re exhausted. I _know_ how it is, been there. Mind just… plays tricks.” A barely noticeable nod is all he needs. “And you’re right, there’s probably a _truth_ to it. For what it’s worth, Jules said the same thing. That you were both kinda… heads in the sand. I dunno if it would’ve changed anything if you _weren’t,_ but… yeah, maybe it _wasn’t_ real. But it is _now.”_

For some time, Quinn stares past him, considering it, then shifts his focus to Max’s eyes. “It is. In a… weird… kinda way. I mean, I _blew_ it. For the second time. But it _still_ feels real. Even the dreams. The sadness, the pain... it’s… liberating. Feels like… riding out the storm. As opposed to heading into a different one. I don’t think… I don’t remember _ever_ just… hurting, knowing that it’s normal, has to be that way.”

Max thinks about Julia’s letter, about their conversation over lunch, remembering the hope in her eyes when he finally dug his way through the RunTime analogies and came out on the laymen side. There are things he’s not supposed to say, not just because he promised he wouldn’t, but because it’s not his place. The lines get blurry again, vague.

“Listen…” he starts, unsure where he’s going with this. “You’re home now. So is Jules. She’s single, you’re single. You have a past. Real or not… you got a son together.”

Quinn huffs with a heart-rending, resigned smile. “Max, it’s over. Has been for years. And she’s right. I’ve got nothing to offer her. And it’s gonna be awhile before I do. She has her own life. She’s made that clear. Maybe there’s someone else. I dunno. But she doesn’t want this. And if I keep… it’ll just cause her more pain. Jules will never go for something she doesn’t want.”

Max fidgets. “In Berlin… you thought she would. Go for it, I mean.”

“Yep.” Quinn tilts his glass bottom up, empties the last drops and sets it on the floor next to him. “Turns out I was pretty dumb.”

“Or…”

“Or… pretty dumb.”

Max sighs, a mix of frustration and befuddlement, but lets it go all the same. As his thoughts race, his eyes aimlessly rummage through the room, finally stalling on the large metal box on the window sill above Quinn’s head. He doesn’t mean to pry, wouldn’t even dream of inquiring about something so personal. But, as if having a sentient mind, his gaze falters - just shy of lingering, dithering enough to be noticed. Before he has a chance to object, Quinn grabs the box and brings it down, placing it on the floor between them.

It’s rather large, one of those old boxes that were once used for storage. Max’s best estimate puts it at twenty inches long, maybe ten wide and just as deep. Loud creaking of metal pierces the room as the lid screeches off. Suddenly, released from their cage, they pour out like colored snowflakes. Hundreds of them: notepad pages, napkins, pieces of wrapping paper, cardboard squares… even tiles of toilet paper. Countless flecks of ink and lead, forming streaks of handwritten lines. Some - front and back, even several pages joined together; others -  a mere paragraph.

Max stills, tears welling up so fast that his eyes feel on fire. Nearly hypnotized, he watches Quinn’s hands as they pick up the letters that fell on the floor, stacking them back together, one by one, gently, tenderly, almost caressing. He begins to take out more, and Max gasps: not just hundreds - over a thousand, for sure.

“I keep promising myself I’ll sort through them,” Quinn laughs, as if reading his mind. “Nine years of letters. And Franny’s too,” he pulls out a smaller pile, held together by a rubber band. “It’ll take me forever now.”

“When did you…”

“...start?” He digs into the box, quickly flipping through the corners. “Motherfucker. Every time I look for a letter, the first one jumps out at me. Now I can’t find it.” He squints, pursing his lips sideways. “I think Johnny was about… three weeks old, maybe? I was in Iraq, near the border, waiting for the extraction team. Three days of radio silence, just me and two other guys from the group, in this old abandoned house. There was this desk, massive…” he throws his arms to the sides, almost full length. “I found an empty notebook, some pens and pencils. And it just… happened. I sat down, wrote _‘Dear John’,_ and… never stopped.”

Baffled, Max stares with disbelief. “Were you ever going to… Does Jules know?”

Quinn shakes his head. “I couldn’t. I mean, at first, I wasn’t even sure I’d keep writing. Three years later, there were almost five hundred letters, and I realized that if something happened to me… “ He stops, motions around: “This apartment is not even under my real name. There’s nothing in the letters indicating who I am, or who Johnny is. I thought about telling Jules. But I figured… it’d just upset her. More complications.”

“So nobody knew?”

“No. I considered moving them to a safe deposit box, giving the key to Andrew. But you know… he and Jules are tight. I didn’t want to put him in a position where he’d have to keep a secret from her. I kept putting it off.” He pauses, rubs his face with both hands, muffling a frustrated growl into his palms. “And then Berlin happened. I was sitting there for hours, before they took me to the gas chamber, thinking about every single thing in my life that I’d fucked up and would never get a chance to fix. And it hit me. The damn box. All these letters, everything I ever wanted to say to my son… And I never got over myself to make sure he’d get them.”

Max fidgets slightly, unsure if what he’s about to say is at all appropriate, but knowing it’s coming out nonetheless. “That’s… what I thought.” He doesn’t realize how hoarse and unsteady his voice is until Quinn squeezes his forearm. “When the broadcast aired, I’d just come home. There was this support group I started going to - coping with grief after a violent death. It had been more than two years… after Fara. But I was still pretty messed up. I turn the TV on, and…”

“Max…” Reaching over, he wraps a strong arm around his friend’s shoulders, and pulls him in.

He holds him tight, a hand on his head, brooding over what he thought were the last hours of his life. He looked back and saw faces: people he cared for, admired, loved. All the same people he’d consciously distanced himself from for reasons that suddenly seemed unimportant. Hopes that were now regrets: shadows of friendships, glimmers of dreams - all that was lost before it even started.

Max looks away, the moment suddenly becoming too much to bear, tears still at bay, but creeping to the surface. Grasping at the threads of his scattered thoughts, he struggles to find his way back to what brought this on. “When I was watching the broadcast, that’s what went through my head. That… there was a kid out there who was losing a father. I was wondering if you ever did get in touch. And… if that’s what _you_ were thinking.”

Quinn props himself higher up against the wall, drawing his knees closer to his chest. He takes a minute, eyes fixed on the whitening knuckles of his linked hands. “There were other things...” he manages, finally. “But yeah, I kept circling back to Johnny, what I wanted to tell him, the letters.” He pauses a while longer, completely submerged, and then, suddenly, breaks into a faint smile. “I made a list.”

Max winces. “Like… a bucket list?”

Quinn huffs a chuckle. “No, it was a little too late for _that._ Just... a list. Of all the things I would do with Johnny if I had a chance.” His grin widens as he slumps back and his head falls to the side, facing Max. “Camping, fishing, riding bikes together, hiking, reading. Stuff like that. I got so wrapped up in that list... All I remember from the last minutes in there was camping with Johnny.” He swallows around the lump in his throat. “The flashbacks I had in Berlin… that was what _really_ happened. But I don’t remember any of it. Just the trees, the sun, the cracking of fire, coffee brewing in a pot, Johnny laughing. It was so real. I just stayed there, until the end.”

“Sounds like fun…” Max starts, and chokes when what sounded like a perfectly good cheering-up attempt in his head, finally registers. Eyes bulging in horror, he frantically grabs Quinn’s elbow. “Oh crap, I mean… _camping,_ not the…”

Quinn laughs, shaking him off with amused exasperation. “Gotcha. Chill.”

Cursing under his breath, Max pinches his eyes shut. “For the record, that’s why I always sucked at associative thinking games,” he grunts, fairly disheartened, but thawing at the sound of another faint chortle. “Johnny will love it,” he adds with a guilty smirk.

“Yeah. I’m actually thinking maybe the last weekend of summer vacation. I picked out a nice spot. Upstate. And you have to hike to the site from the parking lot. So… that’s fun too, right?”

“Um, Quinn? You want advice on online shopping, I’m your man. Outdoorsy activities…? _Really_ not my cup of tea.”

“Yeah, well…” Quinn gives him a meaningful sideways stare, smirking. “We’ll see about that.”

Both desperate for a change of subject, they almost in synchrony lower their eyes to the metal box on the floor. Quinn stacks the letters to Johnny into a messy pile on his lap, with Franny’s on top, then looks at the two remaining items on the bottom.

“My very first beneficiary letter,” he says, taking out a faded envelope with Julia’s name written across. “Took it back from Dar after Jules and I split.” He hands it to Max.

“It’s sealed.”

“No _shit,”_ Quinn muffles a snort. “You _know_ for a beneficiary letter it’s not a _bad_ thing, right?”

Appalled, Max shoots him a scathing look. “Ha-ha,” he gnarls, sneering. “Yeah, I got _that._ And I ain’t opening it.”

Quinn shakes his head at him, but takes the envelope back. “Actually, it’s not even sad.” His eyes get that disarmingly soft glow that Max remembers so well from the earlier days in Berlin. “Jules busted my balls over this one. She has a thing… with _rules._ Just makes shit up. She said if I was going to write a beneficiary letter to her, I can’t use words like ‘done’, died’, ‘killed’, ‘sorry’, ‘miss you’, ‘never’, ‘I wish’, ‘goodbye’... basically anything that I _thought_ about writing.” He holds the envelope with both hands, smiling. “So… it’s a _day._ What I wrote. A day from our life together. The way I imagined it would be if we were a family.”

Max’s eyes involuntary dart to the last item. In the far right corner, there’s a small unmistakable shape of crimson velvet, a delicate shiny rim along the middle. “You still have it,” he mouths.

Quinn takes out the ring box, balancing it gently between the tips of his fingers, smiling. “Yeah.”

“Andrew said you were going to propose.”

“After my last mission.” He grins shyly, breathing a laugh at the memory. “Fuck, I was scared. Not that I thought she’d say no. But… Jule hated these things: proposals, marriage, all of it. She used to say…”

 _“... she didn’t need a fucking priest telling her she would spend the rest of her life with you,”_ Max blurts out, immediately wishing the floor would open up and swallow him whole. “Sorry,” he mutters, turning redder than the box. “Andrew told me.”

A little embarrassed, but somewhat entertained for the most part, Quinn lets out an air of resignation. “I guess the days when nobody knew anything about me are effectively over.”

“I didn’t ask her to tell me, she just…” He stops mid sentence, going numb and desperately hoping that his slip of tongue went unnoticed.

Two furrowed brows swiftly resettle, as one arches in puzzlement. “She?” _Apparently, not._

“He… _he._ Stevenson.”

“Max…”

“What? I meant _he_. Hey, it’s four thirty in the morning, I’m jet lagged and sleep deprived.”

“Seriously, how did you _ever_ get a job with the CIA?”

“Virgil…” Max mumbles. Then, remembering himself, raises a finger. “Hey, it’s a gender mixup. I meant…”

“Ok,” Quinn interrupts, calmly crossing his arms, almost succeeding to conceal his amusement. “Gimme your phone.”

Without shifting his eyes, Max gropes for his phone on the floor and hides it behind his back. “No? Why?”

“I’m calling 911.” Proficiently sliding two fingers along the inside of Max’s forearm, Quinn finds his radial artery. “Pale, shaky hands, cold sweat, rapid breathing, jerking eye movements, a pulse of…” giving it another five seconds: “...above a hundred and twenty. See, where I come from, that means one of two things: _profuse bleeding_ or, you know, _‘has something to hide’._ Since it’s _obviously_ not the _latter…_ I _really_ hope the ambulance gets here in time.”

Breathing a sigh of relief at what turns out to be friendly teasing, Max curses under his breath and jerks his hand away. “Funny. And for the record, I’m not scared of you…” then, just to be on the safe side: “...that much. _Anymore.”_

Quinn laughs, preparing to suggest he go look in the mirror, but something on Max’s face stops him. “You ok?”

Max stirs uneasily, a new wave of anxiety sprouting goosebumps. “I should… we _both_ should go to sleep,” he mumbles, fussing to fish out his phone. Then, catching Quinn’s concerned stare, quivers a half smile. “I’m _fine._ Tired.”

He’s clearly not, far from it. Max is awkward, peculiar. He embarasses quickly, gets nervous, agitated, blurts things out. But not like this. He’s sweating profusely now, blinking fast, fidgeting. Quinn places a steady hand on his shoulder, pushing him back down as he tries to get off the floor. “Max, what’s up?”

Max slumps against the wall, eyes moving erratically about the room. The letters, the box, the engagement ring, this whole place, even Quinn -  they all shrink, forming a row of tiny dots, a line. The same line he swore he wouldn’t cross, secrets that weren’t his to divulge. It’s as if he’s watching himself from afar. Approaching the line, he slows further and further, never reaching it. Except he’s _there,_ far past it, long gone.

He laughs softly, then louder, his mind whirring, falling into its pattern: images, translating to clues, translating to words. “Event horizon,” he blurts with a snort. Then looks over at Quinn. “My head… It works… weird.”

Quinn pats his arm, smiling. “Hey, half the time mine doesn’t work at all.” Then, settling sideways: “So, _event horizon_ as in General Relativity or…?”

Max’s eyes come alive. “Oh. I forgot you were… Although, I thought it was a graduate degree course.”

“It is. And, luckily, not a requirement for Engineering. Back in the day, Morrie set me up with a ‘light’ introduction. I failed it. Twice. Passed on the third by the skin of my teeth.”

Max chuckles. “God, you’re in for a world of pain.”

“Yep. So… event horizon?”

“Quinn, the reason she left… it’s not because she doesn’t want you.”

The carefree smile lingers, frozen around the mouth, but slowly fading in the eyes until it’s gone. Max waits, watching as Quinn’s face hardens, his Adam’s apple rising and falling several times. “What?”

“Look…” Max draws a breath, reaching for his phone. “Here.” He opens the Gmail app. “You should read this.”

“Max, what the fuck?”

“Just… read, ok? I’m sorry. I should’ve told you before. Or maybe… I shouldn’t be telling you now. Except… I can’t. Event horizon. I’m past it.”

Quinn stares at him for a long moment, silent, then turns his eyes to the screen. Seeing the sender name, he shakes his head and hands the phone back. “Max… no. Whatever she… if she wanted to tell me something, she would’ve. And she did.”

Max sits up. “Here’s the deal. You either read it, or I tell you what’s in it.”

That said, he gets up and makes his way to the desk. “What are you doing?” Quinn raises an eyebrow.

“Hiding your car keys.”

 

_“Dearest Max,_

_I’m so sorry I’m only replying to you now. I swear, the moment I got home, I put Johnny to sleep and I sat at my desk to write to you. There was (and still is) so much I wanted to tell you. Every time I’d try, I’d think of all the things I had to say, and I’d go blind from tears._

_There’s something almost funny about this crying thing. It was never something I was good at. I could shed a tear from time to time, but even Johnny (Peter) used to cry more than I did. Eight and a half years ago_ _,_ _I watched the man I loved walk out of my life._ _Every day, for years afterwards, each time I'd look at my son was a reminder._ _But I never cried, not really. I think, a part of me knew that if I started, I would never stop. That it would break me, that I would drown in sorrow, lose it. I couldn’t afford to lose it. And it wasn’t just because I had Johnny to take care of. I think it was the fact that I lived a life that was paid for by another. That I owed it to Peter to keep it together, because he’d given up everything he ever wanted for Johnny and I to be happy. Now, I can’t stop the tears from coming. Ever since we got back, I’ve been crying myself to sleep every night._

_There are no words to tell you what your letter means to me, how grateful I am to you, for you. Knowing that you’re there, that he has you, is the only thing that keeps me from going back._

_He wasn’t always the hardened, shut down, tortured man that I saw when he first woke up. He used to be funny, silly, affectionate to a fault, and incredibly sweet. He’d make a complete fool of himself just to make me laugh. I remember sometimes waking up in the middle of the night because he’d be laughing his head off about some ridiculously silly thing he’d just thought up. I’d grump at him to let me sleep, but he’d keep spinning the joke until I’d laugh too. He’d wake up at five in the morning to make his awful grilled cheese sandwich for me to have before I’d leave for work. He_ _used to_ _listen to his old Sinatra CD and_ _tear_ _up, every time. He’d hum too, horribly off-key, never in front of other people, just for me, at home. He’d start humming what vaguely resembled “The way you look tonight”, grab me and make me dance with him, just like that, in the middle of the day. And when I was pregnant with Johnny, he’d put his head on my chest and talk to my_ _belly for_ _hours, just making up all kinds of funny shit. And I swear it seemed like Johnny was listening. They had this thing going on: Peter would put a hand over my belly, say “High-five!”, and Johnny would kick in the same exact spot, never missed._

 _He still is all these things. The morning his memory started coming back,_ _when he finally_ _recognized me, I looked into his eyes a_ _nd saw_ _the man I loved many years ago, the man I thought died the day he walked out of my_ _delivery_ _room. This world chewed him up and_ _spit_ _him out. He never had it easy. Every time he’d allow himself to hope, to dream, it’d be snatched away. But he never let it break him, take away that beautiful, loving, deeply vulnerable_ _man inside_ _._

 _Over the past_ _few_ _months I saw that man coming back to the surface, unguarded, hopeful. And then, two weeks ago, I shattered his dreams again. You said in your letter that if anyone had done for you what I had done for him the day I left, you’d spend the rest of your life trying to get that person back._ _And you know what_ _, it was the hardest thing I ever had to do, harder than letting him go all_ _those_ _years ago. Every time I remember his eyes as I was walking away, I can’t breathe. I miss him so damn much that it wrenches me every day anew._

_Don’t get me wrong… I’ve been married, and I’ve had some pretty long and serious relationships over the years. But I never really found it again. My marriage didn’t end because of Peter. It ended when I realized that the way I felt about him was how I wanted to feel about the man I’d end up spending the rest of my life with. And you know what? If I hadn’t known him years ago, if I met him today as a complete stranger in a cafe or a bar, I’d still fall for him. The way I fell in love with him in Berlin had nothing to do with what I felt years ago. I love him for who he is now._

_I wanted to stay, more than you could ever know. I wanted to tell him that everything he wanted back, I wanted too._ _Come to think of it, I’d take him back in a heartbeat, even if I knew in advance that years from now it’d end in the same as it did back then. To me, it was worth it. He was worth it. But I can't let him go through that again. I won't_ _._

 _He blames himself for what happened to us. But it was I who failed him, not the other way around._ _I watched that man slowly die inside, fade away, mission after mission. Every time he’d come home, there would be less of him left. But then he’d snap back. He used to say that being with me made him love himself again. That the moment he’d come home he’d feel like that other world wasn’t even real. And I let him_ _believe it._ _I thought if I kept him afloat long enough, eventually we’d come out on the other side. But the thing is, Max, that other world WAS real._ _I should’ve made him face it, deal with it, instead of encouraging his illusion that our little bubble was all he needed. Because just like that, one day, it was over. He didn’t have me anymore, me or Johnny. There was only one world left - the only other thing he thought he knew how to do, or was good at._

 _He’s always been loyal to a fault,_ _always_ _needed a purpose, something to live for. Everything is a mission. He gets caught up in things, and he can’t let go. He keeps looking for something in the real world to pull him out, to keep him out. But the moment he loses it, he’s back. I looked at him in Berlin, the day before I left, and I saw that ‘mission’ fire in his eyes again, that ‘duty’ call. It’s like a switch that flips in his head: I’ll live for this now. One day he’s out and twelve hours later he’s already planning his next mission, something else to give his whole life to. I can’t afford to be his mission, not when I know that if something goes wrong, he’ll end up where he started, and this time it will kill him. I can’t let him live for me or Johnny without knowing that if it doesn’t work out, or hell if we get hit by a bus or something, he’ll stay on this side, will have_ _something else to live for_ _._

 _His whole life, people have been taking advantage of the fact that he can never say ‘no’ when he knows he’s needed. That he’ll stop at nothing, give it everything he’s got. In Berlin, I was listening to the stories you guys were telling me, and I knew that he never changed._ _And that, with some exceptions like you, Max, neither had the people he surrounded himself with._ _He doesn’t have a selfish bone in his body. He’s not naive, he knows when he’s being manipulated or used. He holds grudges, carries pain over what’s been done to him, but, given the chance, he’d do it again. That’s just who he is. It’s part of the reason I love him, but it’s also his curse._

_I can’t allow myself to be his sanctuary again. I’m afraid that if something happens, he’ll go back, and this time it will kill him for real. He shouldn’t love himself because somebody else loves him, or needs him. He should love himself, period. He’s been ready to give his life for others from when he was just a boy. He deserves a life of his own. I want him to have it, to want it. For himself, not for me, his son, or anyone else. I want him to know that he is enough, a purpose of his own._

_Half the time, it doesn't make sense to me either. I honestly don’t know how to go through another day without him. I think the only thing keeping me afloat is knowing that, if the roles were reversed, he’d step aside, wreck his own heart, give up his chance for happiness, for me or anyone else he cared for. He wouldn’t flinch, wouldn’t have to think about it twice, if it meant giving someone what he believed they needed._

_Back to your letter. If I failed to show you how much I admire you and cherish your friendship, I’ll make sure it never happens again. There’s no ‘maybe’ about whether I want to have you in my life. And you surely know how Johnny and Peter feel about you. I’ll see you when you’re back Stateside._

_Love,_

_Julia.”_

 

It’s past 5am when Max finally dozes off, but not before making sure that Quinn won’t do anything rash and stupid.

It was touch and go for a while. Hiding his car keys was just a diversion, something to buy Max enough time to reason with the hot-headed menace. He never fooled himself into thinking that if Quinn wanted to go, he’d hotwire his car faster than Max could say Jack Robinson. Or do something more trivial, less ninja warrior, like taking a cab or just running over to Julia’s house.

At one point, Max actually had to block the apartment door with his own body. And again, knowing he didn’t stand a chance if Quinn tried to break his way past him. For a moment they just stood there: Max, arms and legs blocking the exit, and Quinn, who’d just leapt straight from the floor under the window to the door. Seeing every line of his face frozen, chisel hard, stained with tears, the turmoil in his eyes that, for a change, _did_ look scary, Max almost stepped aside. And he probably would have, if it weren’t for the fact that he couldn’t really let his friend sprint outside barefoot wearing nothing but pajama shorts and a t-shirt. Charily pointing this out, he’d bought himself a reprieve while Quinn got dressed, all the time keeping a grudging stare on Max’s face, and, in general, looking like a grumpy, defiant five-year-old.

“Don’t push her,” Max said then, letting go of the door frame and stepping forward. “She’s scared. For _you._ And showing up at her door at 4:30 in the morning doesn’t exactly scream stability. You’ll see her on Monday. Just... start your life, go to therapy, study, work, _sleep,_ for fuck’s sake. You don’t need to convince her that you’ll make her happy. She knows that. Convince her that you can be happy without her. She’s not going anywhere. But she _will_ if you keep acting like a drama queen.”

There was nothing more he could say, nor did he think he should. He stepped completely away from the door, walked over to Johnny’s bed, and slipped under the covers. Quinn froze where he stood, pants half-on, staring Max down, his unyielding expression slowly thawing, eyes softening all the way to a crinkly smile.

“What you just said…” he grumbled finally, lifting a finger, _“exactly_ what you just said…”

Maxed huffed, shook his head and turned on his side, facing the wall. “Yeah, yeah… I’ll remember it in case I need another distraction.”

 

Finally tired. Not exhausted, not jetlagged - just sleepy, completely limp, mellow. His heart can expand fully now, as if a steel press has been released from around it.

He holds his phone close to his face as the glimmer of morning light seeps into the room. It’s the first time he’s opened Julia’s WhatsApp chat window in over two weeks. It’s definitely the first time he dared to scroll back further than the day she left - his _own_ event horizon. He’s smiling, laughing softly, almost giggling as he goes over every message they’d exchanged since he got his phone in Berlin: gentle teasing, blushing emojis, tentative flirting. He sighs, suddenly realizing he has the same smug grin smeared all over his face that he used to have all those years ago: he wasn’t so dumb after all - he knows her, he wasn’t wrong about the way she looked at him, touched him, smiled at him.

He might not be going over there this very moment, and, if Max watches him like a hawk, he won’t be calling until Monday, either. But he _is_ doing _something._ Not so sure about _what,_ though. He types and deletes at least a dozen times. Nothing too pushy, nothing too detached or too formal. He opens the email that Max graciously agreed to forward to him (after having been threatened that Quinn would tell her that he showed it to him in the first place), and reads it again and again.

He’s finally got it. God bless Max and his determination to turn an analog cave man into a digital guru. Ok, maybe not a guru per se, but definitely someone who can use a ‘share’ button. Opening YouTube, he mutes the sound, and digs into his Sinatra playlist. _“The way you look tonight”_ is at the top. He taps ‘share’, followed by ‘send’ before his _drama queen_ head has a chance to overthink it.

The little check marks turn blue within seconds. Her status remains ‘online’ for a while, as he imagines her staring at the message, then switches back to ‘last seen’. He waits, smiling, heart racing, blood rushing in his ears. The clip is just a little over three minutes long, which is about the time it takes for her to come online again.

She's waiting, and so is he - the digital equivalent of staring into each other’s eyes for a long moment. He types slowly, the way the words play in his head:

-Dance with me

His breath halts as the fear numbs and blinds him completely.

-Ok

The air gusts out of his lungs with a stifled sob of relief. He lets the tears creep across his face, plunging onto the pillow, fingers too shaky to type anything in return. Minutes fall away before another bubble jumps into his blurry view.

-One dance. For now. And I request my favorite performance. With all due respect to Frankie

He breathes out a faint, teary laugh.

-You got it, you stubborn moron

-Tell Max he’s toast. We’ll talk when we meet, ok? See you Monday

-You will

He falls asleep, content, still clenching his phone, before he even registers it slipping from his hands. In his dream, he time-travels again. Except not to the day he walked away.

Before, he’d close his eyes and be back here, in this very room. It looks like it did many years ago. Their bed used to be where his couch is now. He sees Julia sitting there, her eyes hollow and barren. It’s all real, solid. But he is not. He’s made out of black smoke, transparent, a shadow. When he rises above, he sees the whole neighborhood, the whole world, being swallowed by the same shadow, the darkness filling the streets, crawling up the buildings, in through the windows. Then he’s back in the apartment as the black smoke seeps through the walls, surrounding them both. He realizes that it really only wants him. When Julia says that he has to leave, he turns around, steps into the shadow, and vanishes. And he knows that the darkness vanishes as well.

Now in his dream it’s just a day. _Any_ day. The same room, their home. It’s past noon and the sun is high in the sky, splashing gallons of bright yellow paint through the window. They’ve just woken up, wearing nothing but bedsheets. He’s holding her to him like his long lost treasure as they slowly move around the mess on his floor, stumbling and giggling. Dancing to the rhythm of his horribly off-tune humming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NS - Almost there! I can't believe how long it's been! So far for 7-8 chapters, yeah? LOL. Now we just add about another 30 years (day by day) worth of chapters and crash the AO3 server for good. It's just too much fun, especially doing this with you. I need more! More happy bunnies!!!! Much Bunny love!
> 
> GC - should we? Add 30 years day-by-day worth of chapters? Just fluff, you know? Some domestic troubles, nothing too serious. Why am I even asking, right? Need new ideas! Thanks for sticking around for all this time! We gotta figure out a new one now! Love (and happy cat emojis... duh!)


	19. The Dance - Day 1 - Dating Tips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So... because of the rather... I wanna say 'unique', but will go with... _bizarre_ structure that was chosen at the beginning, with time jumps and all, we're at a point where the chronological flow is expanding upon some of the events that were described before. NS had suggested once that we have a "Previously in A Broken Cup" section (mind you, it's not spoken in Saul's voice, nah-ah, it's in Johnny's). 
> 
> With this chapter (and the four that will follow it) it's actually quite important since it comes to expand the '5 days' section we had written in a chapter called "Wise, Reasonable". Now, that we know how they got to the point, it made sense to write and tell the whole story of how these 5 days went for the three of them, although it makes less sense to rewrite the parts that were told already. So... ever so weirdly, we've decided to make 5 chapters, one for each day, and invite you to re-read the parts of these days that were already told, in case it's been a while. 
> 
> You can find the 'time jump' version of these 5 days [HERE](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13208025/chapters/30937485#dating) and click 'back' on your browser to come back to this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very belated _and_ secret **Happy B-Day** to Gnomecat!!! There'll be more! Love you, you fluffy bunny!

**Day 1, Monday, 1:36pm**

The door to Stevenson’s office bursts open without so much as a warning knock. He stops mid-sentence, still holding the phone to his ear, and lifts his eyes from the open file on his desk. Assessing the situation takes no more than three seconds: he’s known this look since she was five years old, and, to be frank, in thirty two years it hadn’t changed much. She’s all grown up now, a mother, a valued colleague, close friend. But it’s all gone when she gets like this. In his mind, all he sees is a young girl, rolling into his front yard and dropping her bike where she stands, propping her tiny fists on her hips and sneering with discontent and an irritated snort. And, for the record, it still means the same as it did then: _drop whatever you’re doing, ‘cause boy! am I pissed!_

Giving her an acknowledging nod, he calmly finishes his sentence, then excuses himself from the conversation and closes the file. “What’s up, squirrel?” 

The nickname comes with the feeling. He’s never been particularly good at keeping professional distance, even less so with Julia. They do alright most of the time, especially around other people. He’s always been fair with her, no preferential treatment. They’re a good team - the whole unit - best clearance rate in the district, which is probably the main reason why the HR has chosen to look the other way. But this is different, they are alone now, and she’s clearly not here to talk to her captain about a case. In short, it’s a ‘squirrel’ moment.

Julia crosses the room, arm outstretched and holding her phone. When he just stares at her,  eyebrows arched in perplexion, she impatiently wiggles her wrist. “Take it. I can’t _stand_ it anymore! And I can’t _work_ like this. It’s driving me… argh!”

“Huh.”

Her expression flickers between frustration and despair, eventually settling on begging. “Just… take it, alright? Please. I can’t stop looking at the damn thing!”

He clears his throat, does his best to mock seriousness, then smiles slyly. She has her moods, he has his. Seeing her like this always brings the loving, playful father part of him to the surface. “And it’s not dialing? Shocker. Also, you _know_ what they say about a watched pot, eh?” Rather entertained by how razzing just makes her nostrils flare harder, he goes all the way: “A watched pot never rings?”

Her eyes grow darker, brow furrowing. “For _fuck’s_ sake, Andrew…”

He shakes his head at her in amused exasperation, lets out a deep sigh and extends his hand, palm up, flipping his fingers for her to hand it over. “Should I ask?”

“No.” She looks down, biting her lip.

“Fine. Get outta here.”

With even, determined strides she storms out. She’s barely closed the door behind her when the phone starts to ring. Hearing a thud, he’s suddenly reminded that the pile of boxes outside his office still hasn’t made it to the archives. The sound of the collision is followed by a shrieked “Goddammit!” and a series of thunderous thumps as, he imagines, she wheels back and slams into the cardboard pillar. By the time she makes it through, he’s already holding the phone out for her, smiling even wider and pretending to fuss with the files on the desk.

“Says here _Crazy Badass Motherfucker,”_ he remarks, motioning with his eyes to the caller ID and mimicking a concerned face. “Should I just mark it as spam?” Muttering incoherently under her breath, flushed to her ears, she throws the whole fidgeting mess of her across his office and snatches the phone. “Say hi,” he winks, then, catching her remorseful eyes on him as she becomes painfully aware of her actions, lifts a heavy folder and playfully aims at her. “Go!”

She sprints through the unit to the elevator atrium, then cuts to the left, pushing the heavy door to the stairwell open with the weight of her body. Too many people around. She needs quiet, alone, just her and the voice on the other side of the line. Taking the stairs two at a time, she climbs two storeys above. The whole floor is closed for renovations. Clutching her phone, she dashes to the nearest open window.

Just as she’s about to answer, the line goes dead. Stomping her foot, she lets out a screeching growl. She tells herself that this is beyond insane, that she can call him back, that she’s never been so distraught in her life. She can be impulsive, whimsical, hot headed, even reckless at times. But she’s never had _this_ much trouble keeping her shit together. Before her conversation with Max she was sad, but composed, resolved. Now, she finds it nearly impossible to concentrate, even at work. Her sleeping pattern is erratic at best, she’s emotional, eruptive, not to mention absent-minded to the point of not remembering if she had coffee in the morning.

She knows he won’t push her to do anything she’s not ready for. And she’s _not_ ready. But maybe she wants him to push just a little. Maybe she wants him to be bold, overwhelmingly confident, to charm his way back into her life, sweep her off her feet. In a way , It’s as if the last thirteen years never happened, and they are back where they started. Except they are not, and that scares her even more. Because it’s different, _everything_ is different. So many things have happened, to both of them. What if he _can’t_ give her the time she needs? What if he gives up? What if she caves and they fuck it up because they’re not ready?

The chime of a WhatsApp notification brings her back to Earth. She draws a deep breath, grounds herself. They’ve done it before, right? When they were so much younger, had so much less to lose.

-Hey! Guess you’re busy. I’m on a break. Thought I’d check in to see what time I can come pick up Johnny. Have to be back in 20 mins. Call if you get a chance before then. Or I’ll try again around 5.

He picks up on the first ring. She grasps the window sill, feeling her knees weaken.

“Hey,” he says, and her heart rate slows, the air rushing out of her lungs through a teary smile.

“Hey yourself,” she breathes, spreading her fingers on the window and pressing her forehead next to it.

There’s a small pause that seems to last forever. Her thoughts are a knot, strands of twine. Things that she could or should say, and things that she wants to, but can’t.

He bails her out, speaking first, his voice calm, almost breezy. “Get this: I’m having a normal… _ish_ work lunch. In this small park they have here. You’d like it. Reminds me of the one in Berlin.” Then, with a more frisky tone, adds: “Has some fairly climbable trees, too.”

She smiles, relaxing. “How’s work?”

“Orientation. Mostly. Did some documents, small stuff. Brushing up on my Spanish, it’s been a while.”

“Nice place? People?”

She hears a muffled snort. “Compared to my _usual_ work environment…”

They both laugh, tension dissipating. Julia turns around, back to the wall, and slides to the carpeted floor, stretching her legs and crossing them at the ankles. “Whatcha having?”

“For lunch?” There’s the sound of a paper bag being unfolded. “Um… I’ve got… an apple, two GOGurt tubes, a pack of string cheese, a juice box… aaand… Ok, I made an omelet sandwich this morning. And it’s… it’s crap, Jule, inedible crap. I fed it to the dog of one of the residents.”

She giggles, shaking her head, as a vivid image of him in the kitchen, packing a lunch, blocks out the rest of her worries. “So… yogurt, string cheese and an apple?”

“And a juice box.”

“My bad. And a _juice box._ Did you at least have breakfast?”

“Yep. A pudding cup. And Fruit Loops. Never tried them before. Good shit. I think I swallowed two bowls and then crunched some more from the box.”

“So, basically, your kitchen looks like a nine-year old after a shopping spree.”

He pauses, thinking. “Well… Johnny sent me a list.”

“Yeah. I got _that_ . Next time _I’m_ doing your grocery shopping.”

“How about…”

She grins wider. “Fine, you can come too. Maybe not at _first._ But you know… once you grow up a little, sure.” His snorting laughter makes her ache all over. God, she’s missed him, missed _this._ “Hey, you got any cold cuts? Pastrami? Salami? Stuff like that?”

“Uhm…”

“Gotcha. Tell you what. You come by earlier today - Johnny won’t be home until six - and I’ll show you how I make that turkey pastrami sandwich you like. And if we have time, maybe I’ll throw in a free omelet making course.”

“Actually, I don’t think I can make it there before six thirty. Meeting Morrie at Penn right after work.”

“Fine, then after you guys come back. I’ll get some stuff for you to take home while you’re out.”

“Yeah, that works.”

Julia presses the phone harder to the side of her head. He sounds happy, content, almost cheerful. She’s dizzy, trying her best not to give in to the turmoil of joy and wistfulness tinged with fear, losing herself to this new normal: his voice, soft, confident, relaxed, alternating with crunching an apple, the birds chirping in the background, the low whisper of trees in the wind. _His_ new normal.

“So, I’ll see you around six thirty?” she utters, choking back tears and lowering her voice to conceal the trembling.

“Hey… Jule? Jesus, don’t cry, silly.” There’s a short pause, followed by a chortle. “I don’t even have a gun anymore. Can’t shoot anyone when you cry.”

She breaks into a sobbing laughter. “God, you’re full o’shit…”

“But cute…?” he prompts with that disarming mix of shy and smug that only he can pull off.

She sniffles, wipes her eyes. “Yeah. Fucking _adorable.”_ Deep breath, she looks at the time, feeling her heart sink. “You better go.”

“Yeah. I should. I’ll call you when I’m done with Morrie. If it’s ok.”

“Peter…” She sighs, grips the phone tighter, squeezing the corners of her eyes. “Look, we don’t have to… I’m not… You don’t have to ask my permission, ok? I mean, I don’t know how we’re gonna… Oh fuck.” More deep breaths. “You can call or message anytime you want, alright?”

“Really? _Anytime_ I want? You want me to get fired my first day on the job?”

She laughs, rolling her eyes. “You know what I mean… oh, fuck _you.”_

“For the record… that doesn’t really work as a _threat.”_

Her face is on fire, heart sprinting into a race, skin scorching. The old, familiar vengeful thrill of a challenge rises faster than she can stop it. _Two can play at that game, motherfucker._ “Oh yeah? Well, _for the record,_ it was more like a _promise.”_ There’s a sound of liquid spilling, followed by a violent cough and a string of curses. She sticks out her tongue. _“Now_ you can go back to work.”

 _“Fuck!!!_ Goddamn you, Jule. I got juice all over my pants.”

“Did you?” She gets up, smiling triumphantly and dusting her skirt. “I guess the good news is… that’s _exactly_ what people at work are gonna think it is. _Juice.”_

He half-laughs half-grumps, “This is _not_ over!”

“Yeah, yeah… consider me warned.” Walking down the stairs, she lets the flutter of hope take over. “I’ll see you soon. Bye, silly.”

“Bye, Jule.” Some more fussing, frustrated growling and, eventually, a resigned sigh. “Oh… for fuck’s sake… This is _so_ on!”

 

********************

**Same day, 9:37pm**

Kitchen is spotless, the house squeaky clean, the air filled with smells of food and freshly baked bread. Having done all she could possibly think of to take her mind off the fact that _“I’ll pick you up tomorrow at 8”_ won’t happen for another 24 hours, Julia takes a shower and settles on the couch. She tucks her legs, fully intending to read until the father-son duo get back from their first evening alone together. Which better be in twenty three minutes… or _else._

Just when it seemed like the day couldn’t possibly get any brighter, he managed to top it. She was still in the kitchen, about to start her evening chores, when he messaged her again, telling her that they decided to stay at the park near her apartment building. It was followed by a picture of the two of them snuggled together under a tree, both smiling from ear to ear, two pairs of identical eyes filling her heart with sparkles of silvery-blue.

Even if she _hadn’t_ been entirely sure about admitting how she felt in her earlier message, she was _now._ He’s not backing off, not allowing her stubborn insecurities scare him away, not letting her go. Things _have_ changed, but not this, not his patience, his cautious persistence, his disarming way of staying in her life without pushing her.

He looked scared when he showed up at six thirty, barely hugged her. She moved away too quickly, unable to trust herself if she hadn’t. Her reaction to his owning the apartment they used to live in drove the stick even deeper. It’s like a snowball. When he gets insecure, when she sees the fear in his eyes, she loses her confidence, gets even more anxious, starts thinking that Max was wrong.

Sooner or later, they’ll have to talk, really talk, no fooling around, no jokes. She’s heard all she wanted to hear; now she needs to _know,_ to see it happening, to be sure. But not yet, not today. They messaged on and off throughout the entire evening: subtle flirting, silly emojis, pictures. She gave in, allowed herself to believe , to dream, to be happy again, act smitten and silly. She owes him that much, today of all days. Because, bumper stickers aside, it _is_ the first day of the rest of his life.

Her phone buzzes again at three minutes to ten. She drops her book.

-Climbing the stairs. How am I doing so far? Military-time-wise?

She giggles, runs to the door barefoot and types the reply in the hallway, listening to the happy murmuring as their voices come closer.

-You're not gonna ask if you're getting lucky just for showing up on time, are you?

They are on the last flight of stairs when his phone chirps. He looks at the screen, misses a step, stumbles and nearly loses his balance.

“Dad? You ok?” Johnny grabs his elbow.

He throws an arm around his son’s neck, pulls him in for a kiss on the head and nudges him towards Julia. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Shooting her a scorning look then adding jokingly,   _“Mom’s_ in trouble, though.”

Over the moon with happiness at seeing his parents grin at each other, Johnny barrels into his mother’s embrace, flinging arms around her. She cups his beaming face as he looks up, chin on her chest. “You have fun, handsome?”

Johnny nods vigorously, squeezing her even tighter. “We had ice-cream for dinner,” he smirks. “And waffles.”

Julia sighs: she’ll deal with the ‘healthy’ life-style _later._ She drops a smacking kiss next to Johnny’s ear, making him giggle. “Ok, bug. Shower, pjs and bed. I’ll be right in.”

“Can Dad stay until then?”

“Yep. He’s staying awhile. I’m gonna show him how to make a nice sandwich to take to work.”

“Like the one you make for me to take to school? With your sauce?”

“Yep. Now we just need to decide if Dad’s earned the right to have the secret family recipe.”

“Mooooom!” he scorns. “It’s _Dad!”_

“I’m kidding, you daddy’s boy. But it’s nice to know where we stand on the family votes.” Laughing, she runs a hand through his hair only to find it full of dry leaves and grass. “Hey! What’s this? Were you guys _wrestling_ in the park?”

Johnny dusts his head, shaking it from side to side, fully knowing that nothing short of relentless combing will _ever_ get anything out the moody, untamable tuft. “Mannnn… we didn’t wrestle, I swear. It was just windy.”

Picking out leaves one by one, Julia huffs a snort. “This hair will be the death of me.”

“Hey!” She hears a jokingly offended voice as Quinn steps closer, lifting a warning finger. “Hair’s off limits!” he squints.

She has one look at the mess on his own head and bursts into laughter. Back to Johnny: “I’ll comb it after you take a shower if something’s still stuck. Go on, call me when you’re done.”

Overjoyed and nearly out of his mind with happiness, Johnny squeals a long repetitive string of I-love-you’s, then does the same throwing himself into his father’s arms.

As soon as he finally runs off, feet thumping all the way to his room, Julia turns to Quinn and pulls down his shoulders. “C’mere, you hair prototype.” He bows his head, snickering as she picks out the dirt. When he looks up again, she’s holding a dried clover in front of his face. “Kinda proving my point…”

Smiling, he winds a hand around hers, entwining her forearm and holding the stem with two fingers. “You _liked_ my hair,” he whispers into a long kiss on her knuckles.

“Eh...” Julia winks. “Maybe.” Stroking his head as he presses the side of his face to their interlaced wrists. “And if I did, it was mainly because I never had to clean it myself.”

He pulls her in tight, hiding her hand between them, next to his chest. “Thank you.”

“For what, silly?”

His lips bury deep into her hair. “All of it.”

“Awwwwww… you’re getting all _gooey_ again,” she snorts.

“God, you’re a pain in the ass,” he sighs, covering her head with his palm.

“You’ll get sick of me…”

“Doubtful. Plus… I don’t get _sick.”_ Fishing out his phone, he meaningfully points to her last message. “I get _even,_ you shameless tease. Twice in one day?”

Julia wrinkles her nose. “Well, technically… _technically,_ there’s no _rule_ against it. And it’s called _two-nil.”_

She turns to go inside as his arm weaves around her waist from behind. Before she knows it, she’s pressed against him, his mouth on the curve of her neck. One kiss - lingering, confident, scorching - and her knees buckle. She gasps his name. He holds her steady, with both arms now, as his lips travel up to her ear where they curve into triumphant grin. “Well, technically… _technically,_ now it’s two- _one._ And _counting.”_

Still smirking, he lets go just as fast, and holds the door open while she steadies her breath. “So… Cooking class?”

 

They just about settle in the kitchen, when Johnny, barefoot and wearing his pjs, charges in. Seeing his father still here, legs crossed and casually slumped on a chair, he plows forward. To his great dismay, half-leap he’s snatched into his mother’s stranglehold, which tightens incrementally the more he wriggles to set himself free.

“Hold still!” She laughs. He gives up, huffing and fidgeting while she thoroughly inspects his wet hair. “Not bad! Combed it yourself?”

“Duh! Moooom!”

“Fine. Go. Quick goodnight and you’re off to bed!”

The gentle nudge she gives him is hardly needed. Smiling, she watches them come together like two magnets, a giggly knot of arms, legs, and kisses thrown about. Finally, Johnny settles, hidden almost entirely in his father’s arms, head on his chest, not a whisper they mouth escaping the bubble.

Tears welling up faster than she can fight them back, she turns away. Her knuckles pale as she clutches the kitchen towel.

“I think we did it!” she hears after a while, spoken deliberately louder in Peter’s voice. “Mom’s getting all _gooey.”_

Johnny shrieks a giggle. _“Gooey…_ Mom _never_ gets gooey!”

“Wanna bet?” Before he says another word, a balled towel flies across the kitchen, hitting him square in the face. “Told you…” he muffles behind the soft fibers.

Johnny squeals louder, peeling the towel from his father’s head, then sits up, grinning slyly, eyes darting from one smitten parent to another. He’s nine (ok, _almost_ nine) - he’s not _stupid._ _Cooking class... pfft, yeah right!_

He tugs on his father’s shirt, giving him a serious, meaningful stare. “What we talked about…?” a slight, albeit rather conspicuous, nod in his mother’s direction.

“Yep.”

“You’ll be good?”

Raising three fingers, “Scout’s honor.”

Johnny squints, sceptical. “You’re no Scout.”

“Yeah, well… there’s no _black-ops honor,_ so it’ll have to do, you smarta… _pants.”_

More delighted giggles, _many_ more hugs and kisses from both his parents, before Johnny thumps happily back to bed. The moment his door slams shut, Julia crosses her arms, leaning back on the counter. “Wanna fill me in?”

“On…?”

“Oh, I dunno…” She mimics his Scout’s salute.

“Ah.” Quinn smirks. “We had a… man-to-man.”

“About _me.”_

“Well…”

“Peter,” she sighs, losing the smile as a new wave of anxiety breaks through. “It’s not… I don’t want him involved in this. Not until… not just _now.”_

“Hey…” He starts getting up, but she beats him to it, taking the chair across the corner. “Jule, he’s not a baby. He sees things. You know, he was worried about you.”

Julia squints. _“Worried?_ Why?”

“He saw you crying. So he kicked my ass about it.” His mouth curves into a faint smile.

“Oh crap. When did he…?”

“Does it matter?” He sits closer. “Look, I know this is not… _ideal._ But he’s already in the middle of it. If there wasn’t Berlin… The way I imagined it would be if I came back, had gotten to know him… yeah, it would be different. Gradual. Especially if you and I were also…” He smiles wistfully, caressing the side of her face.

She doesn’t move away, placing her hand over his, then curling her fingers around his wrist. “Yeah. It would be. And it _should_ be.”

“Look, I had a talk with him. When he brought it up. Not… nothing _too_ serious, but I think he understands.”

“Believe me, he doesn’t." Julia gets up and walks back to the counter, frustration and fear clouding her mind. Flushed, she swings around and crosses her arms. “Peter, _I_ don’t even understand. Which is a whole _different_ talk that we’re gonna have at _some_ point.” Seeing him taken aback, she heaves. Her eyes soften, and so does her tone. “ My point is , you don’t _know_ Johnny, alright? You two are… in the _honeymoon_ phase. And it’s great. You both deserve it, and I love seeing the two of you together.”

“But…?”

“There’s no _but._ Ok, maybe there is. I mean, you’re _great_ with him. Natural. In a way that’s… well, it’s a little surprising, but not _really,_ not to _me._ But Peter, you weren’t _here._ There are things about Johnny you don’t know. He’s loving, and he’s cuddly, and he’s smart as a whip, but he’s also…”

Catching her intense stare on him as she stops abruptly, “He’s also what?”

“You, Peter. He’s _you._ For better and for worse. It’s not just the hair, or the eyes, or the dimples… he’s so much _like_ you, it freaks me out sometimes.”

He arches a sly brow. “Bad thing?”

“Don’t!” Unable to hold back a smile, Julia lifts a warning finger. “No getting cute when I’m trying to be serious!”

“See that’s the _one_ rule that I was _never_ too good at following.”

She bores her eyes into his. “I _remember._ But you’re _gonna.”_

He laughs at first, but then forces a serious expression. “You’re right. Go on.”

Julia regroups, gathering her thoughts. “What I’m saying is… I don’t want him to get his hopes up. He’s… he takes it badly. When things don’t work out.”

It takes him a second. “You mean…”

“Yes, Peter. I mean _other men._ My marriage, my other relationships.”

He swallows to water his rapidly drying throat, a wave of jealousy rippling through. It’s nothing he didn’t already know, definitely not after reading her letter. In his head, he knows it’s a fact of life: they’d both tried to move on. But in his heart, it feels like a dull knife, digging and twisting.

It’s not until her hands are on his knees that he realizes he hasn’t spoken in a long while, staring blankly into space.

“Hey…” She’s crouched in front of him, eyes resting softly on his face. Bending all the way down, he presses his forehead to the top of her head. “Oh silly… C’mere.” She hugs him, rubbing his shoulders. “We don’t have to talk about this. I just… it’s hard to explain what I mean about Johnny without going there.”

He opens his legs, draws her in as she is - still crouching - and locks arms around her. _You’re mine,_ he wants to scream, _all mine._ But he doesn’t, just holds her closer. She _was_ his. But he’d given her up. And, right now, it’s not _about_ him, nor is it about what he did or didn’t do, or how crappy he feels about it. It’s not even about her. It’s about Johnny.

He strokes her back, turning slightly and breathing a kiss in her hair. “I’m good.”

“You sure?” Julia stands up, still unconvinced.

Moving her chair further away from the table, he motions for her to retake her place. “I’m sure.”

“Um…” She glances at the time, considering something, then points her thumb to behind her back. “You wanna coffee or something? Or a drink?”

He winces. “That bad?”

“What? No! Nothing bad…” Biting her lower lip, “Ok, maybe. Not _bad,_ but… it could take a while. Look, if you need to… I mean, you got work in the morning. We can talk tomorrow.”

Breathing a laugh at her fidgeting, he gives her a coy smile. “Tea.”

“Huh?” Her jaw remains dropped, eyes widening in disbelief. _“That’s_ new.”

He sneers - wasn’t _his_ first choice either. “I’m… it’s messing up my sleep. Can’t afford to stay up all night anymore.”

“Wow.” Filling the kettle, Julia sneaks a look over her shoulder. “You ok with it, though? Headaches?”

“Tylenol.”

“Ah.”

They both laugh. Rising on tiptoe, Julia fetches two mugs and a large metal container. Her hand stops hesitantly mid-air as she reaches for sugar, her memory flexing. Did she _ever_ make tea for him? Does she even know how he takes it?

“Strong, no sugar,” he grins impishly, reading her mind.

They sit a while, quiet, content, two steaming cups and a jar of strawberry jam on the table between them, hands softly linked together.

“Look,” Quinn starts, “you’re right. I don’t know Johnny. I waltzed into your lives like the last eight and a half years never happened. I should’ve talked to you before I talked to him.”

“Peter, nobody _waltzes_ into my life , _or_ Joh nny’s. Not if I don’t want them to. You _know_ that.” He nods, a weak smile breaking through as he feels her thumb stroke his knuckles. “Yeah, we should’ve had this talk _before_ today. I should’ve told you these things about Johnny. That’s why we’re talking _now._ When it comes to Johnny, we need to be on the same page.”

“And we’re not?”

“We’re not even in the same _book,_ Peter. You’re reading a spin-off without knowing the original story.” She sighs, moving her cup out of the way and leaning closer. “Look, all I’m saying is that it wasn’t my first choice - you meeting Johnny like you did . But you’re right, it _did_ happen. And now we’ve got to come up with a plan to… I dunno… control the situation.”

“Ok. You want _me_ to talk to him? Us together? Just you?”

“I don’t know yet. If it’s ok with you, I think maybe I’ll talk to him tomorrow morning. Just to see where he’s at. But I think from now on, anything that has to do with you and me, or the three of us, we should tell him together.”

“You're right. Jule, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I just, you know, he asked, and I had to say something. We didn’t even talk about it much. I’m not…” He looks down at their hands, caressing her fingers. “You know I’m not... I don’t know how to talk about these things. Never did, really. Except with you. And he’s a kid, I wasn’t even sure it was… appropriate. Because you’re right, I don’t know shit about kids.”

Julia smiles, gently lifting his face. “Hey… _nobody_ knows shit about kids. Definitely not the first one. Every age hits you in the gut. You think _I_ always know how to deal with him? I fucked up plenty, believe me. And you’ll fuck up your fair share too. What I’m saying is, right now I have the advantage of a head start. I can tell you where _I_ fucked up, so that you don’t go and do the same.”

He squints, puffing an air of exasperation. “Jule, quit shitting me. You never fucked up a thing in your life. You’ve done… fuck, I don’t have the _words_ to tell you what an incredible job you’ve done with him.”

“Well...” Wrinkling her nose, she sticks out her tongue. “It’s the _rules.”_

He swears under his breath, causing her to laugh. “F’sssake, Jules! Once! Take a compliment like a normal person. _Once!”_

Laughing harder, she stands up just enough to kiss him on the cheek and stroke his hair. “Thank you.” They hold each other’s eyes for a long tender moment. “Well, he _does_ make it easy. _Most_ of the time. Where it matters.” But then her mouth quivers mischievously again. “And we both know it didn’t come from _my_ genepool.”

“So much for taking a compliment,” he snorts.

Wondering if he should let go, he feels his arms around her instinctively tighten their hold. She’ll move away if she wants to. She doesn’t. Instead, she steps closer, kisses his forehead now, fingers tangled in his hair. “I didn’t want to talk about any of this today,” she sighs with a soft smile that scorches its way from his eyes to his heart.

Unsure how to respond, he grins back, his mind filling with joy as the memories of the day bubble to the surface: the phone call, the messages, the laughs. “It was… pretty great.”

She leans her head against his. “It was wonderful. All of it. Really wonderful, Peter. And it felt… so _right,_ you know?”

“Yeah. It did.”

Suddenly, Julia stiffens, flinches in his arms, like it hurts, like a heavy cloud has obscured the sun. Before moving away, she breathes a heavy sigh into an achingly sad kiss on his temple.

She sits back, eyes darting sideways, and his smile fades away. “Jule… Hey...” he reaches to take her hand, caressing her face. “Jule, it’s ok. You don’t have to decide anything. I _want_ this, _us,_ but not at any cost. Not if you feel pressured into it.”

“Oh silly, I know…” she presses her lips into his palm, holding it closer to her cheek. “God, this is hard. But there are things that I _need_ to tell you. Like… about Johnny. Why it scares the crap out of me.”

“That he’s excited about us?”

“Well, yeah. Because there _is_ no us. I mean, there _might_ be, _someday,_ but…” her fingers spasm around his hand. “There might _not._ ”

He swallows. “Yeah.”

“Look,” she sits closer, without letting go of his hand, stroking his forearm. “Before I say more, you gotta know… Right now, all I want is to ask you to stay. Tonight, and every other night. Just thinking about you leaving, going to sleep without you, waking up alone, when you’re here… it’s…”

Just thinking about _staying,_ going to sleep _with_ her, waking up _next_ to her, makes his vision go black and white for a moment. He wipes his mind clean, pulls her hand to his mouth. “I know, Jule.”

She nods, breathes in. “I said it feels right. And it does. It feels perfect. But then it doesn’t. I keep…” She points to her head. “I can’t separate what’s happening now from what happened then. When it feels right, it reminds me of how happy we were, throws me back. But I can’t think about how great it used to be without remembering how it ended. And all the shit that came afterwards.”

“Jule…”

“Just… let me finish, ok? What I wrote to Max is just one side of it. Yes, getting over you was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Living with knowing what it did to _you_ was even harder. But there’s me, too. I kept it together, all these years. But I _was_ angry. And I _was_ hurting.”

He wants to tell her that she had every right to be angry. That he was angry, too, with _himself,_ hated himself, for years. That he wishes he could go back and do it over, knowing then what he does now. “Jule, what are you saying?” he asks hoarsely.

“I’m saying I need time. We both do. We need to talk. About a lot of things. Clear the air. And even then... I can’t promise. It might _not_ work out. And Johnny… for him that’s not an option.”

“Jule, I get it. When your other relationships ended, he lost… a father figure, I guess. But we agreed, even before I came back. If I’m not a part of your life, I’m still a part of _his._ If this doesn’t work, he’s not losing me.”

“Peter, it’s not about losing you, or losing a _father figure._ For him it’s about having a family. That’s what he’s always wanted. Dave and I are still good friends. He and Johnny spend time together, go to the movies. Dave goes on a lot of his school trips. It’s been more than three years since we split. But to this day Johnny gets grumpy every time Dave brings him home. _Why can’t Dave stay for dinner? Why can’t Dave tuck me in? Mom, Dave likes you, he broke up with Jess, why can’t he stay over?_ He’s… He wants a home, with two parents. And now even more so. Because he’s wanted a home with _you_ ever since he first realized he didn’t have a father like the other kids in his daycare and came to ask me about it.”

For a moment Quinn can’t breathe, feeling his innards twisting a knot, real, deep, visceral pain shooting everywhere. “What did you…?”

“What did I tell him?” Seeing his face drain of color, the turmoil of guilt and agony in his eyes, Julia takes both his hands. “Well… he was three… maybe four years old then? I told him his father was a soldier, that he had a very important and dangerous job, protecting us. That there are a lot of bad people in the world, so soldiers have to work hard all the time to keep everyone safe. And that that’s what you were doing. And that every morning he and I woke up safe and sound it was because his father was out there making sure of that.”

He turns away, tears torrenting down in an unbroken stream. The more he wipes them, the harder they come. They feel hot, burning, as if the pain is oozing out of him, corroding everything on its way. The same pain that used to numb his senses now cranks them all the way up, breaking him open.  

Fighting her own tears, Julia stays put. And he’s grateful. He can’t have her hold him right now. He feels if she does, he’ll burst into flames, burn inwards. She doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, until his breaths even out. Then, standing up quietly, fetches a box of tissues from the shelf and places it next to him.

“He was very proud,” she says in a mere whisper, when he reaches for her hand.

His eyes well up again, but a small smile softens the ridges. “Really?”

“You kidding me? He was _bragging_ about it. Telling all the other kids that his dad has the most important job, keeps everyone safe.”

He laughs through tears, kissing her fingers. “Jesus, Jule… I dunno what to say.”

“Look, I tried. I didn’t always have all the answers. But what’s important right now is _why_ I’m telling you all this. And I know it hurts. I do. I wish there was a way around it.”

“Jule, it’ll always hurt. Because I can’t take it back, do it over. It’s not _your_ fault.”

She nods. “What I was saying is… after Dave and I split, Johnny had a bit of a rough patch. At first he cried, tried to convince me to let Dave stay, asking me why we can’t live in the same house even if he and I are not together, asking why he can’t just sleep in a different room. He was five years old then. After Dave moved out, he refused to leave his room, stopped talking to me. He _talked,_ about _other_ things, but not _that._ I mean I tried, but he'd throw tantrums. He lost weight, had nightmares and couldn't sleep, was always tired at preschool. At night, I’d find him hiding under his blanket with a flashlight, drawing. I tried dealing with it on my own, but nothing worked. So I took him to a therapist. She did a great job, he saw her for almost a year, sometimes with me, sometimes alone.”

He swallows the hurt, pushes past it. He lived with his pain, his remorse - she lived with the rest of it. For him, it was eight and a half years. For her - days, hours, minutes, countless units of cooking, cleaning, driving back and forth to school, paying for therapy, going to parent-teacher conferences, answering questions, worrying.

“Was he ok? Afterwards?” he asks finally.

“Well, he was _better._ Started first grade. Got into comic books, then Star Trek...” She chuckles, “His drawings? The ones he was doing under the blanket? His therapist showed me some that he made during their sessions. It was a comic book. About a boy with superpowers, he called him Supersoldier. At night he’d fly around the world and kill all the bad people, so that his father’s job would be done, and he could come home to his family.”

A sharp pain through his heart is followed by an unexpected flutter of tenderness, ache, longing. He looks up, blinking the new wave of tears away, then breathes a soft laugh, “Goddammit, Johnny…”

Julia strokes the back of his hand. “That’s what I mean, Peter. When I say that he’s so much like you. He wants to fix everything, for everyone. He’s sweet, and funny, and friendly. He’s passionate about things he likes. But he’s _too_ passionate sometimes. He gets intense, emotional - _too_ emotional - gets wrapped up in things, can’t let go. And it’s scary. Because he’s also very impulsive.”

It’s the weirdest thing, the mix of emotions that stir inside him: a sense of closeness and joy alternating with mind-numbing fear. Is it a good thing? His child being so much like him? Or did he pass on to his son everything that’s made him fuck up his own life? “Was there more? Incidents, I mean? After Dave?” feeling his blood curdling into an icy sludge.

“Well… yeah. Nothing _that_ big, nothing that required therapy. But yeah. And the last time was this spring, shortly before Berlin.”

Another pinch in his chest. She was in a long relationship just before Berlin? He breathes in, wiping the thought away. “What happened?”

“You gotta understand. After Dave, I was careful. It’d take me _months_ to let a man I was dating into Johnny’s life. And I’d have endless talks with him about how things might not work out. With Jake it all seemed to go well: we were together for over a year, _living_ together, Johnny was older, seemed more grounded, and he _adored_ Jake. But then I found out he was screwing his sister-in-law on the side, so I kicked him out. And I wasn’t going to tell Johnny _why,_ right? I sat him down, explained that it was over, that it wasn’t his fault, or anyone’s, things just didn’t work out.”

“Jesus, Jules... Cheating on you?”

“Oh dear lord...” Julia mutters under her breath, shaking her head at him in a slightly admonishing manner, both amused and touched by the genuine incredulity in his eyes. “Peter, focus. The point is, Johnny’s sneaky. He overheard me talking to Stevenson. I was upset, maybe even crying, I don’t remember. Next thing I know, I come to pick him up from school and he’s not there. I called everyone we knew, all his friends. Andrew had a search party on the ready. Then I get a call from Jake, telling me to come pick up my _batshit crazy kid._ ”

“Your _what???”_ Fists balling, Quinn feels the blood pounding in his head.

“Peter!” Julia is not smiling anymore. “Seriously, this is exactly the kind of shit that I’m talking about. Because, apparently, Johnny sneaked out of school, took a bus, went to his house, and, the moment he opened the door, launched at him with fists, screaming that he was gonna kill him for hurting me. Yeah, he cheated on me. Yeah, he was an obnoxious ass… apparently. But Johnny was eight years old, _just barely!_ I mean, kids think about these things, sure. But he _acted_ on it. He went half way across the town, on his own, to kick the crap out of the guy for hurting his mother. He’s not just impulsive, or overprotective of me. He’s capable. _And_ resourceful. I was scared shitless, almost crashed my car on the way there. I didn’t know if I was supposed to yell at him or hug him. He could’ve gotten lost, hurt… or worse.”

“Jule…” he reaches to caress her twitching face.

She takes several deep breaths, lowers her voice. “Peter, Jake was a stranger, a _nobody._ But you’re _not._ This time, if _we_ don’t make it work, he’ll be torn between the two people he loves the most. Lose the only dream of a family he ever had. Peter, it’ll tear him apart…”

“Hey… hey.” Quinn crouches in front of her, taking both her hands. “I get it. Everything you said, I hear you. And yeah, it’s… worrisome. But Jule, first of all, we don’t know it won’t work.” She opens her mouth to counter. “Just… let me finish. I’m not saying it’s a sure thing. But that’s what we both want. Right now. And we’ll try. Like you said, we’ll talk to him. Together. Maybe… make him a part of it. ‘Cause he’s already in it. And if… I mean, maybe it’s _because_ it’s us that it’ll be different. He won’t lose either of us. And we’ll figure out a plan, make it easier on him. _Whatever_ happens, you won’t be alone in this. Not this time.”

His arms slide around her as she bends down, resting her forehead on his. They both laugh a little as she nods, first hesitantly, then more decidedly, bobbing his head as well. Quinn grabs his chair, drags it around the table corner and sits next to her now, drawing her to him. They stay silent a while, breathing, holding each other, getting back the feel of the day that nearly slipped away.

He presses a cheek to the top of her head, fingers buried deep in the shimmering silk of her hair. “We got this, ok?”

She nods again, something inside letting go, like a knot loosening. “Ok,” she whispers. _They got this._ For the first time in nine years. _They,_ not just _her._ She smiles, looking up. “So… What _did_ you guys talk about?”

Quinn snickers. “Dating tips.”

She laughs. “Oh God… I’d say _the_ _blind leading the blind…_ but you know he’s a romantic comedy and chick-flicks junkie, right? You should take notes.”

Smirking, he half rolls sideways to pull a wrinkled piece of paper from his pants pocket. “He wrote it down for me.”

_“Don’t be late. Mom likes to hold hands. Don’t touch her chocolate cake. Tell her you like her hair. Tell her she is beautiful. Look in her eyes when she talks. Tell her you’ll never leave her again.”_

Julia muffles a sob in her palm, hiding her face in his shirt as he holds her closer.

“Oh, and he’s taking me shopping tomorrow,” Quinn adds. “We decided I gotta look _hot.”_

She snorts, looping an arm around his neck. “I’m fucked.”

Breathing a laugh, he presses his lips to her temple. “That’s the idea…” Then, remembering something, “Ok if I pick him up from Roey’s tomorrow? Closer to Penn.”

Julia sits up, wiping her eyes. “Sure. You want me to call Barbara?”

“I got their numbers.”

“Oh. Ok, good. Well, Barbara knows about you, so…”

Cocking his head, he raises a sly brow. “Knows about me as in…?”

“As in _Johnny’s dad is back in the picture,”_ Julia pinches his side.

A stab of disappointment is washed away by the gentle touch of her fingers on his face as she leans on his shoulder, pushing herself up and placing an achingly soft kiss on the corner of his mouth. With a small sigh, she sinks back into his arms and weaves her own around him. He holds her for a long moment, fear and worries falling beyond, imagining himself showing up at Johnny’s friend’s house, just a guy, after a day of work and studying. He’s never met Barbara and Amit, Roey’s parents, but in his eyes he pictures a tall, dark-haired man opening the door, waving him in, calling out to Johnny that his dad’s come to pick him up. He figures they'd shake hands, make official introductions, maybe a bit of small talk (mental note: _God help me…)._ Just two guys, two fathers. He imagines Barbara emerging from the living room, smiling, extending her hand as well, maybe asking if he’d like a glass of lemonade while Johnny is getting his things together. He’s about to say that yes, he would love some if it’s not too much trouble, when...

His breath hitches as, in his mind’s eye, he sees Johnny leaping out of nowhere, jumping into his arms, nearly knocking him over. He says goodbye to Amit, thanks him and Barbara for having the kids over, as they walk to his car, Johnny skipping a little, arms laced casually. Johnny is chatting, telling him about his day and everything they did, how great the pool party was. He reminds himself to check Johnny’s bag to make sure his wet swimsuit isn’t touching the comic books. Then he smiles, thinking about snapping a selfie of the two of them in the car, just before driving off to Bloomingdales, with the caption: _“Picked him up. We’re good. Off to make me look HOT. <mental note: gotta find a particularly smug-looking emoji> See you at 8”._

It’s mind-bogglingly quiet in his head, peaceful, _normal._ Well, as normal as it can be when you’re back in your son’s life after nine years away, taking his mother on that first date that you promised thirteen years ago but never went on. Heart pounding in his throat, he looks down, deep into her smiling black eyes, blissful and calm. No fear, no doubt, an abyss of serenity and joy. “Welcome to Neverland,” she whispers. And he breaks open in every way.

 

It's just before midnight when he finally stands up to leave. They are both laughing, trying to keep quiet so that they don’t wake up Johnny, having spent the last half hour chatting about his first day at work, his new colleagues, the case she’s working on; how she slammed into a pillar of cardboard boxes when he finally called; how Morrie, after nine years, is still wearing his brown tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. But mostly they talked about Johnny, no more worrisome stuff, just the funny, the sweet, and the quirky.

Looking at the neatly sliced bread she’d prepared on the counter, he winces. “I screwed up the…” Pointing, “... cooking class.”

Julia grins mischievously, breaking away and heading to the fridge. Even before she opens the freezer door, he chokes, feels his eyes burn again with tears of joy and gratitude. He should’ve known. Leaving her alone for three hours meant more than just a spotless house. She starts removing Tupperware boxes, a whole pile of them, all different sizes. Zucchini and mushroom casseroles, cut into portions, packed separately for him to just throw in his lunch bag. A jar of homemade barbecue sauce that makes his mouth water as if the last time he had it was just this morning and not a decade ago. And a huge box with twenty individually wrapped omelets, some empty, some stuffed: cheese, mushrooms, onions, greens.

“This should hold you for some time,” she smiles shyly, biting the tip of her thumb under his incredulous stare. “What? I was bored! _And_ worried. You know I get…” motioning to the boxes, “...well, you _know.”_

He crosses over, bursting with ache as he gathers the whole adorable, fidgeting mess of her into a sweet knot between his arms. It takes all of his will power not to kiss her, claim her, take her right here, right now, and never let go. “What am I gonna do with you?” he laughs instead, holding her tighter. Then, seeing her grin turn impish, lifts a finger: “Nah-ah, you’re not going up _three-one_ when I gotta leave.”

As they move to the hallway, saying goodbye, she catches him glancing repeatedly towards Johnny’s room. “Wanna go check in on him?” she smiles.

He takes her hand as she leads him in, quietly pushing the door open. “Don’t leave...” he mouths when she steps back.

They walk in together, holding hands, then twining arms as they come closer. Johnny is splayed on his front, legs outstretched, one arm reaching in an arc around his head while the other dangles from the edge of the bed. His pillow is pushed to the side, smushed against the wall, blanket crumpled near his feet.

Quinn chuckles, kneeling down, heart exploding with tenderness. Carefully picking up his son’s hand, he places it on the mattress next to the boy’s face, pulling up the blanket and tucking it all around. As he leans down for a kiss, Johnny half-opens his eyes. Stirring softly, and, finally recognizing the figure hovering over him, he throws a sleepy arm around his father’s neck, then, murmuring something incoherent, forces Quinn’s head down, next to his own. He drifts off just as fast, still smiling, holding tight, half way into a kiss that falls sloppily on the bridge of his father’s nose.

“You’re responsible for your own extraction,” Julia whispers, snickering softly and stroking his shoulder. “I’ll be outside.”

He stays a while, waiting for the grip around his neck to loosen on its own. Gently freeing himself, he draws the cover up to Johnny’s shoulders and places his arm underneath. He touches his head, fingers through his hair, very lightly, careful not to wake him up again.

“You know…” he starts, smiling at the memory. “I _told_ her you were listening.” Just like that, it’s nine years ago. Julia is sitting on the be d. He ’s kneeling in front of her, duffel bag on his shoulders, ready to go leave for his last mission. Both hands on her growing belly, he presses his face against her , feeling his child come alive, move about, pushing and kicking. With Julia giggling, calling him silly and stroking his head, he whispers his usual mantra, asking his boy to take care of her while he’s away, be the man in the house. He leans closer, lips on Johnny’s cheek. “Thank you. But I’ll kick your butt if you ever do anything like that _ever_ again.” Then, smiling, adds: “I’m home now. I’ll take over.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NS - Remind me to stop when we get to day 5. Because I might end up writing forever. The happy bunnies tend to have that effect on me!
> 
> GC - This way we get to keep your b-day the state secret it was supposed to be and still give you a present of fluff, fireworks, kissing on the Ferris wheel (spoilers alert) and... well basically, just fluff.
> 
> Love you both!!!


	20. Day 2 - The 'Handler'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (In Johnny's voice)  
> Previously in A Broken Cup...
> 
> So yeah, the quote that Andrew's talking about? Lemme remind you. It goes like this _The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing._ My dad wrote it on my mom's cast when they were just kids. More in a chapter called 'Random Acts of Kindness'.
> 
> Anyway... the 'shortened' version of this day starts when my dad comes to pick up my mom for their date. She says it's not a date, but whatever. Anyway... they go to this restaurant and talk, and my mom says she's not sure she can do this again, and my dad's like... 'you're saying you don't trust me?'. She she's like... 'I don't know what I'm saying. I don't know what I want. It's too much. I don't want you to live for us'. But he tells her he wants to live for himself, and if it doesn't work out, he'll accept it, but not run from it. And that's all she wanted to hear. So, the shortened version of this day ends with my mom stuffing a spoonful of hot chocolate fudge in Dad's mouth, and he's like... 'Izh 'at a yesh?" or somethin'. So this is where the part 'Same day, 9:37PM' picks up. 
> 
> Oh, and I'm the 'handler', btw. Just recruited two major assets. Shh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Gnomecat! Still belated, still Happy B-Day!

**Day 2, 7:53AM**

The third notification finally wakes her up. Lying on her front, head under the pillow, Julia gropes for her phone on the nightstand. Yanking it from the charger, she grudgingly opens one eye.

7:17AM  -Turns out, reheating zucchini casserole in the toaster wasn’t the brightest idea. Fuck me. Stunk the place up and made a mess like you wouldn’t believe. Threw it away. The toaster, not the food. Scraped out what I could and had it for breakfast. It’s great, btw 

7:31AM  -Defrosted a piece of the mushroom one. Used Jimmy’s microwave. Remember Jimmy? Still here, still stoned. Says hi and thanks for the casserole (I left him some - munchies). Off to work

7:53AM  -<a picture of an empty Tupperware box> Opened the damn box in the car and snatched a piece. Couldn’t help myself. Good thing I grabbed a pudding cup and some gogurt

Groaning, slightly annoyed, Julia rolls off the bed and shuffles to the kitchen. She grabs another Tupperware box from the freezer and, before replying, stuffs it into her purse.

-You’re a goofball. Will try to stop by at noon. And good morning to you too

He comes online just briefly, and right away her phone begins to ring. With a heavy sigh, Julia falls onto a chair and rubs her face. She stares at the caller ID, torn between what she wants to do and what needs to be done. Every second she can’t decide whether or not to answer is a decision all the same.

“Hey,” she says, trying not to sound too irritated.

“Morning.” There’s a smile in his voice. “You at work already?”

“Uhm…” a hand through her hair, pushing past the pounding headache. “I don’t start until nine thirty. About to wake up Johnny and take him to Roey’s.”

“Oh. Shit, did I wake you?”

“It’s fine. My alarm was supposed to go off anyway.” Ear pressing the phone to her shoulder, Julia gets up and fetches a coffee filter. “Look, about your lunch. I’ll see if I can drop by at some point.”

“What?” he laughs. “Don’t worry about it. They got a small cafeteria here. I’ll just get a sandwich or something.”

“Ok. Well…” She pushes ‘Start’ on the coffee maker and leans on the counter. “I gotta get ready. I’ll text you after I talk to Johnny.”

“Sure. I gotta go in anyway. And don’t… I mean, text me anytime. But we can talk about it tonight.”

“Yeah. Ok then.” Stinging tears of frustration gather at the back of her eyes. “Peter…”

The words choke as her mind begins to race again, thoughts tangling together. _This is wrong. All wrong. How can something so right be so wrong? I don’t know. I don’t know what I want. Or maybe I do, I know what I want but I don’t know if I can, or if I should. Maybe it’s too soon. Or too late. I don’t know. And I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to tell you why. I just don’t know._

“Hey…” The background noises mute gradually until there's nothing but the sound of his steps on the concrete as she imagines him getting away from the crowd. When he speaks again, his voice is like a soft, warm summer rain that settles the dust storm. “Last night was… incredible, Jule. All of it.”

“Yeah?” She wipes under her eyes with the bottom of her palm, smiling.

“Yeah. I’ll see you tonight. We’ll talk. Tonight and as many times as it takes, see where we go from there. Jule, just don’t worry about it. You’re not leading me on. I get it. I heard you. Everything you said.”

She exhales, tingling with relief. She could kiss him right now. Just for saying that. “Ok. Good.”

“I’ll see you at eight.”

She smiles. “Ok. You gotta run back. I’ll text you.”

They manage a quick goodbye before the line goes dead, leaving her with a stir of sadness, longing and hope. She shakes it off, and, laughing under her breath, goes to wash up. As she passes the dresser, she looks at the corner of the Tupperware peeking from her purse. Wheeling around, she takes it out and strides back to the kitchen. Grabbing a brown paper bag, she opens the freezer and removes a lunch-size box she has on the ready for when Johnny he has a long day out. She picks one with grilled chicken, stewed veggies and rice, and drops it in the bag. Then thinks about it, breathes a snigger, and adds another one. Two forks, two dinner knives, and two large pieces of carrot cake follow. _Sandwich from the cafeteria my ass._

\---------------------------------

She finds Johnny already awake and sitting on his bed, legs crossed, a piece of printer paper in his hand. “Morning, bug.” Walking over, she climbs next to him, crosses her own legs and sneaks a peek. Immediately, the paper goes behind Johnny’s back. “What’s that?”

He glances at the door, almost expectantly, listening intently for a moment. Then, with a hint of disappointment, shifts his eyes back to her face. “Did… Dad stay over?”

She takes a breath. “No, he didn’t.” _Welcom_ _e to mo_ _dern age parenting, Jules,_ she grumps in her head.

“Oh.”

“Did you think he would?”

He shrugs, looking away. “Maybe.”

“Whatcha got there?” She motions with her eyes to the piece of paper sticking from behind his back.

“Nothing. It’s…” Reconsidering, Johnny hands it to her. “Was dad in my room last night? Found it on my desk.”

She reads, eyes watering as she shakes her head. _“What other superpowers does Supersoldier have? Does he have a name? What does he do during the day? Does he have a friend who knows about his secret identity? Does his dad have superpowers too? What about his mom? You’ve got until I pick you up from Roey’s_ _to figure out_ _. I might have more questions as we work on it. We’ll make up the rest of the story before you start school, maybe find a sketch artist to help with the drawings. I think Max knows a guy who can have it published.”_

“I think it’s a great idea.” Julia gives the paper back, hand trembling a little.

“Yeah,” Johnny smiles dreamily, staring at his father’s handwriting. “Dad’s pretty cool.”

She laughs, messing up his hair. “Dad’s _super_ cool. You gotta think of some super cool superpowers for him. _And_ me.” Scooting back against the wall, she lifts an arm. “C’mere you.” He crawls under, melting into her embrace and rubbing the side of his head against her shoulder. “You _are_ a snuggle-bug,” Julia laughs, dropping kisses all over his face. “And guess what?”

Johnny wrinkles his nose as they fire in perfect unison, _“We gotta talk.”_

She lets out a small chuckle. “Yep.”

“About you and Dad?”

“Yeah. Ok if we chat for a bit now and then sit down together with Dad tomorrow and talk some more?”

Johnny shrugs again, thinks about it, shrugs some more. “Sure.”

“You know Dad and I love you very much, right?”

“Moooom,” he rolls his eyes, almost theatrically. _“Don’t._ I’m not a _baby.”_

“What’s that supposed to mean? And not the _‘I’m not a baby’_ part. I get _that.”_

Johnny half turns, huffing and spreading his palms. _“_ _All_ parents say that.”

“Well, all parents say that ‘cause it’s the truth. Nothing to snort about. We love you very much. Your dad is _super_ crazy about you.” She winks, “Maybe _that’s_ his superpower.”

Johnny snickers a little, but his smile fades away just as fast. He leans back into her arms, holding her tight. “But he made you cry.”

“Oh, Johnny… he _didn’t._ It was…” She takes a minute. “I wasn’t crying because of something _he_ did. I was just sad. I saw him in Berlin, saw the two of you together, and I remembered all the happy times we once had. And how much I missed him after he left.”

He nods, deep in thought, but seemingly unconvinced. Julia strokes his hair, watching his fingers fiddling with the folds of her pants. Then, finally: “Mom?”

“Yeah?” She kisses his head.

He looks up, eye glistening and full. “What if Dad leaves again?”

Her heart falls. “What makes you think he would?”

“I dunno. What if someone needs his help? Carrie, or Max? Or that other guy we saw in Berlin… with the beard?”

“Saul?”

“Yeah. What if they tell him they need him and he goes to help ‘cause he feels bad and then something happens to him?”

Good question. The very same question that she’s been asking herself, _and_ him, in her head ever since the night he told her he was getting out. Maybe even before then. She looks at Johnn y, his teary eyes turned to her for answers. She doesn’t _have_ answers - she has hopes, and fears, and dreams. It’s not even enough to soothe _her_ concerns. How is it ever going to be enough for a nine-year-old?

She draws a deep breath, pulling Johnny harder against her. “Well, let’s see. You know Dad doesn’t work for the CIA anymore, right?” He nods, her cue to continue. “Right. And he doesn’t want to have anything to do with his old job. He has a new job now. And he’s starting to study this fall. Full time. He seems to be very serious about it. I talked to him last night. He’s very excited, you know? To be home, see you every day, go back to school. He used to like school, did you know that?”

Johnny smiles a little, snuggling closer and tilting his head. “He did?”

“Yeah. A lot. He once told me that when he was your age he was a straight A student. And before you were born he was studying very hard, despite having to go away sometimes. He got his high school diploma and took the SAT. He even took some college courses. You know what he wants to be?”

“An engineer!” Johnny beams with pride.

“Yep. And it’s not easy. But he really, really wants it. And he’s trying to get into the best school in the country.”

Johnny rolls his eyes, reminding her again that _he’s not a baby,_ “Mom, I _know._ MIT.”

“Right. So, look… nobody knows what’ll happen in the future. But right now, it seems to _me,_ that Dad doesn’t want to go back to his old job. I think he’s very happy to be away from his old life. He has his new job, which he likes, and his studies, and _y_ _ou.”_ She tickles his neck as he squirms and giggles. “You know what it means to give somebody the benefit of the doubt?”

Johnny squints, thinking. “Kind of…”

“It means, among other things, that if someone is trying to do something, says they want to do something, even if we don’t know for sure they can, it’s better to believe that they will succeed. Because we also don’t know for sure that they’ll fail. So that’s what we gotta do for Dad. We have to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s trying very hard. He needs to know we believe that he can do it this time. _Especially_ you.”

Johnny nods, considering it in silence for a long moment. She’s still thinking how to bring up the next topic when he cocks his head.

“How come Dad’s picking me up from Roey’s and not you?”

She gives him a jokingly narrow-eyed stare. “I thought you guys were going _shopping.”_

Johnny grins from ear to ear. “Oh, so you know. He wants to look _hot._ For your date.”

“Yeah, I know. And, Johnny, it’s not a _date.”_

“Mom…” He rolls his eyes.

“Hey, I’m not kidding. That’s what I wanted us to talk about. Dad and I are not dating. If we start, you’ll be the first to know. Ok, _he’ll_ be the first to know. But you get what I mean.”

“Mom,” he sighs, going for an air of exasperation this time. “You _love_ each other. You’re going _out._ It’s a _date.”_

Go argue with _that_ logic. “Oh man…” Julia sits him up higher. “Jo, it’s important. In all seriousness. Dad and I are not getting back together just yet. We agreed to wait and see, go out and talk, but that’s all. We talked about it last night and we decided that we’ll talk to you - together - about anything we decide. But for now, this is what I want you to understand. Dad is back in our lives, and it’s great. He doesn’t plan on leaving. Even if he and I don’t get back together…”

“Mooooooom! You _will.”_

“You don’t know that. _We_ don’t know that. And I want you to stop thinking and acting like it’s a done deal. It’s going to be very difficult for us - Dad and I - to work on our relationship if we’re under pressure, thinking that we have to get together just because otherwise you’d get upset. Do you understand that?”

He nods enthusiastically. “I won’t get upset. I promise.”

Julia starts to say _“Good,”_ but something stops her. She squints suspiciously, “Why?”

Johnny breaks into a cheeky smile. “Coz you’ll stay together.”

“Hey! No getting cute when I’m trying to be serious!”

He rolls his eyes. “Not the _rules,_ mom. I can never follow this one!”

“I _know._ Apparently you lack the gene for it.” She laughs, lifting his face and dropping a kiss on the tip of his nose. “Now get serious. For real. We gotta run soon. Promise me you’ll let us do our thing, try and work this out. No building it up in that romantic head of yours. And we promise we’ll tell you how things go, all the time.”

“Fiiiiiine…”

“Say it!”

“I promise. But ma…”

She’s already by the door, pointing to the bathroom. “Go wash up, we’ll talk more in the car. And don’t forget your swimsuit.”

“But ma!”

“What, bunny?” She walks back to his bed, scooping him into her arms. “What is it?”

Suddenly, his expression becomes sly, almost sassy. “Remember…” he lifts a philosophical finger. “Dad’s just a boy… standing in front of a girl. Asking her to love him.”

Oddly speechless for a moment, her jaw dropped, Julia stares back as his grin widens, becoming more and more complacent by the second. Then, laughing the many comebacks that choke in her throat, she knocks him down on the bed and smothers him with giggly kisses. “That’s it, you sappy nut-butt! I’m blocking Notting Hill on Netflix!” she shouts after him when he finally gets away, squealing and sprinting to the bathroom.

Still snorting under her breath and shaking her head, she quickly finishes getting ready. They chat some more over breakfast, then tidy up the kitchen together, teasing and taunting. As soon as Johnny runs to get the rest of his things, she sits on the couch and takes out her phone. She’s been over this message in her head many times, back and forth on how much she should say. In the end, it’s more of a feeling than something she can put into words. There’ll be time for hard questions, harsh truths, maybe even tonight. But not yet.

-Hey! Quick update: we talked, it went well. He had some concerns. Nothing that you and I never talked about, but something that we’ll need to discuss again, especially in light of what Johnny said. But I feel better about it. Actually, I feel good, really good. I don’t know why, but I think you were right: it’s different for him this time, because it’s you. He’s more involved, but he’s also more grounded. I think he knows that even if things don’t work out, some things will never be lost to him again. And I told him we’ll sit down together, the three of us, and talk some more. Maybe tomorrow.

Quinn’s phone is on silent during work hours. He feels it vibrate in his pocket when he’s translating the admission policy to a new Persian family. Stealing a quick glance at the clock on the wall, he finds his concentration faltering for a moment as the knot at the pit of his stomach twists tighter. He takes a deep breath, rewinds, turns to the family and explains what’s just been said to them. Despite the growing anxiety, he keeps it together, suddenly realizing how different it is from being focused on a mission. The mind always wanders, even if you’re glued to a sniper spot in Beirut, waiting for your target to appear. But this is different. In Beirut, you don’t expect to get messages from the mother of your child, telling you how he’s dealing with the changes in his life.

He excuses himself as soon as the meeting is over, barely making it to a secluded spot near the bathroom before taking out his phone. His palms feel clammy. Every word sends shockwaves, rippling shivers, jolts of relief that make him weak in the knees. He stares at her message for a long minute, reading it over, then locks the phone and slides it back in the pocket. What he wants to say to her, what he feels, will never come out right in a text. Walking back to work, he’s grinning, thinking that actually there are _three_ words that _might,_ but he’s not saying _that_ for the first time in WhatsApp.

 

**Same day, 1:03PM**

With two vacuum-sucked-empty GoGurt tubes and a scraped-clean pudding cup on the table, Quinn unwraps his avocado-cheese sandwich and aims for the middle to rip it in two.

“Don’t,” Stevenson laughs, leaning back and leisurely turning his face to the afternoon sun. “Told you, I got a lunch meeting with the Deputy Commissioner in half an hour. Plus, Jules will pull my guts out through my ears.”

Quinn raises an eyebrow. “For eating half a sandwich?”

“No. For eating half _your_ sandwich.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Realizing Andrew isn't about to change his mind, he nearly shoves the sandwich into his mouth. “We’ll label it ‘classified’.”

“Yeah, _that’ll_ work. She’ll pull it out of your sorry ass as soon as you start nibbling on the wicker of the bread basket at dinner tonight. I’ve seen assholes tougher than you crawl out of her interrogation room weepin’ like a widow on a wake.”

Quinn chuckles: he has no trouble imagining _that._ _“Speaking_ of ‘classified’. About tonight? You better clear it with her. I’ll tell her I asked you to babysit if she presses on, take _some_ heat, but she’s all worked up about me messing up her life with Johnny as it is. So just tell her when you see her. I think she was gonna ask Ana-Maria to stay with him.”

“Why should you take _any_ heat? Was my idea.”

“Just…”

“Fine. I’ll call ahead, ‘round seven _-ish_ maybe, tell her I wanna take him to the movies or somethin’.”

“Yeah, ‘cause _that_ she won’t see through.” Shaking his head, Quinn annihilates the other half  sandwich in one swallow.

Stevenson sighs, glancing at his watch and swearing under his breath. “If I’d known, I would’ve gotten you a hoagie or somethin’ on my way over.” He motions to the wrappers on the table. “This a fuckin’ joke.”

Gathering the trash into his lunch bag and folding it over, “I’ve had worse.”

“You gotta be _shittin’_ me,” Andrew grumbles, falling back and crossing his arms.

Quinn opens his mouth to say that he’s survived on much less for a hell of a lot longer than seven hours. But, seeing Stevenson’s narrow-eyed, amused stare fixed on something behind his back, he swings around.

Julia approaches with determined, even strides, heels staccating on the pavement. Squinting and shaking her head at the sight of her ‘boss’ slouched indolently on the bench, she drops the brown paper bag on the table and places her hands on her hips.

“Cap’n.”

Shielding his eyes from the sun: “Detective.”

Keeping her eyes on Andrew, she jerks her head sideways in Quinn's direction. “The _Deputy Commissioner_ sure got handsomer since the _last_ time I saw him.”

Busted, but not about to lose face, Stevenson smirks back. “So did the _suspect_ you were _supposedly_ bringing in.”

“Hey!” Lifting a playfully indignant finger, Julia flops on the bench next to Quinn. “I _did._ And, for the _record,_ not a _suspect_ anymore. DA’s on his way.”

“And you pulled that off in the last…” another glance at his watch, followed by a skeptically arched brow, “...half an hour?”

“Well… I _wanna_ say it’s because unlike _some_ people , when I’m on duty I actually _work._ But I’m just gonna go with… Yep, I’m that good.” After a short pause, she sits up excitedly. “Well, _that…_ And the lab came through. God, you’re gonna love it. One o’them _i_ _nspirational_ ‘dumb luck’ stories that you just looooove telling your cadets. You know… a guy literally gets away with murder eighteen years ago, then gets busted for it today ‘cause last year he was detained for a B &E. The charges were dropped, but hey... now he’s in CODIS.”

Stevenson’s glaring delight spills into a smile so broad that his eyes drown completely. “You’re shittin’ me... B&E?”

“I know, right? _That_ should jump up your list. Ok, maybe not the _top-_ top, ‘cause _nothing_ tops the...” gesticulating with her finger as she recalls the chain of events, “...being pulled over for speeding, then pissing off the highway patrol who vengefully takes an extra special interest in the unregistered .22 in your glove compartment, which then goes through a routine ballistic test, only to find out it was used seven years ago in your cousin’s murder, for which you were never even brought in for questioning.”

His rumbling guffaw pierces the air, stirring a rustle above their heads as a flock of sparrows scatters away. Flat-lunged and gasping for air, he shakes his head in adoration while Julia excitedly rambles on about the case. He’s thankful for the tears of laughter. Underneath, he can safely well up with joy without revealing what a sentimental old goof he’s become. God, he’s missed this: _them,_ an air of calm and bliss that he hasn’t felt in years.

They were a family once, the three of them, in every sense of the word. He still remembers the thrill in his chest when he’d get a text asking if he was home, followed by another, asking what he wants for dinner. They’d show up with takeout or Tupperware boxes they’d grabbed from their fridge, and in an instant, his place would come alive with laughter and silly banter. After dinner, they’d kick off their shoes, all of them, splay on his couch, and talk into the wee hours, sipping beer, gulping chasers of whiskey, laughing their heads off, or just vegging out in front of TV. He’d always struggle to stay awake, waiting for the two of them to doze off, cuddled together in the same spot. Then he’d drag himself into the guest room to fetch a blanket and pillow, lay them down, lift up their legs, and, tuck them in, smiling as they snuggled closer.

After Johnny was born and Quinn left, he threw himself into work.  Every day after his shift, he’d head to Julia’s place, stopping to get groceries and diapers on the way. He’d spend an hour listening to her lecture him on how they’re ‘doing just fine,’ how he must be tired, and then he’d grab Johnny and take him to the park. Each time he’d come home to find her passed out on the bed. Leonid would arrive in the morning before opening his dry cleaning shop and do the same. The reason being, Julia was all alone, having had refused all help from her family.

Knowing their family history as he did, he never quite understood why she insisted on keeping in touch with them for so long in the first place. As far as he knew, the beatings stopped the day he had the ‘talk’ with her mother. But other kinds of abuse continued: the belittling, the insults, the humiliation. And when she moved in with Quinn, all hell broke loose. It quickly escalated from subtle, sugar-coated, passive-aggressive nagging to open name calling, shaming in public, and even threats.

Julia remained close to her father and so kept visiting her family up until the day he died. She broke contact for a while, but after his death her sisters had a hard time coping, and then her mother suffered a transient stroke. Martin, her older brother, begged Julia to be the bigger person, saying her mother needed her now more than ever. She tried for a while but then got pregnant, and their unborn child was deemed a ‘bastard’ and Julia a ‘whore’. Martin kept begging her to come, making excuses, insinuating openly that Julia wasn’t blameless in this. Quinn was furious, but Julia begged him to let it go, and, reluctantly, he went along with it to avoid creating a deeper rift. But once Johnny came, it was as if something inside Julia snapped. After her mother’s abusive tirade while she was in active labor and distraught out of her mind, she cut all ties with her family. She never let her mother near Johnny, and, as far as he knows, never even spoke to her after she was thrown out of the delivery room by Quinn. She only recently reconnected with her younger sisters.

He finally hit rock bottom the day Julia moved out of their apartment. He and Leonid came over to help with packing. Emptying Julia’s desk, he stumbled across a yellowish chunk of plaster, a piece of her cast, faded letters staring back at him from over sixteen years ago. The same quote that once made him break his word, nearly break his _oath,_ the same quote that kept popping into his head once in a while, every time he’d have doubts about doing the right thing.

Saying nothing, he dropped the piece of plaster in the box. Later that night, after settling Julia and Johnny into their new place, he drove to Baltimore. There, sitting on the ground next to Martha’s and Oliver’s graves, was when he cried for the first time, realizing that it wasn’t just Julia and Johnny who’d lost someone the day Quinn left. That he himself had lost another boy, another son, lived through yet another senseless tragedy. Deep in his heart he knew Quinn was never coming back, was off to the world of shadows, because _“Evil triumphs when good men do nothing”._ And that was the moment when something inside of _him_ snapped. He picked up the phone and called Ricky Meyers. It was two in the morning, twenty four years after his wife and son were killed in a hit-and-run that was never solved. Ricky picked up on the second ring. He didn’t need Andrew to clarify, when, without even bothering with ‘Hello’, he said, “It’s time, man. I’m ready.”

It took them four years to find the man responsible for his family’s deaths and, finally, bring him to justice. It didn’t come with a sense of closure, nor did it make losing them - or Quinn - any easier. But, combined with the quote that by then was constantly on his mind, it gave birth to an intrusive idea. An idea that finally came to fruition after two years of seemingly endless bureaucracy: the Cold Case unit inside Philly Homicide Division. The nameplate on his desk was a gift from Ricky. His friend didn’t know the story behind it, but over the years, he’d heard Andrew mumble the phrase over and over - a dictum that came to define his life.

Awakened from his reverie by a joint sound of laughter, Andrew looks at Quinn sitting across the table, half turned to Julia. Through a new wave of tears, he watches him lean closer and pick out a leaf from her hair. Julia stops, swallows, words and breath halting at the sight of Quinn’s smile. He sits closer, settling an arm behind her back with an encouraging nod: “Go on.”

Time to remove the third wheel, or his ‘handler’ will have a bone to pick with him when hears about it later tonight. Smiling, he reluctantly stands up, stretching and rounding the table. Motioning to the untouched lunch bag he says, “You better get _to_ it.”

“Hey, where are _you_ going?” Julia grabs his sleeve. “We’ve got enough for three.”

Andrew bends down, kissing her cheek. “Some other time, Squirrel. I wasn’t yankin’ your chain ‘bout the lunch with the old fart. Gotta get goin’.” Pulling away just slightly, he cups her face. “And good job. Proud of you. Always.”

She smirks, “You _better_ be!”

Quinn rises, extending his hand above Julia’s head, but finding himself pulled in for a firm hug. He pats Stevenson’s shoulder, “It was great… you stopping by. Really great. See you Friday, yeah?”

Without releasing his hold on him, Andrew nods. “Sure thing. Max coming?”

“Maybe. If he’s back by then. Still on the job. But Leonid’s in.”

“Good deal. You lemme know ‘bout Max. And say hi.”

“Sure.”

They hug a while longer, hovering over Julia. Before letting go, Andrew places a hand over Quinn’s head, then turns to plant a hard kiss on his temple. “You leave again and I swear to God…  I’ll scour the Earth, find you in whatever shithole you crawl into and make that gas chamber look like Disneyland. We clear?”

Quinn laughs, tightening his embrace. “Crystal, Sir.”

They watch as Stevenson walks away, quiet for some time. Quinn sits back. Smirking, Julia cocks her head. “So… boys’ night out on Friday?”

“Yep. Of sorts.” Then, with a coy grin: “Wanna come?”

Julia snorts in disdain. “Poker, whiskey, cigars, chips, dips, nuts, and wings? I think you boys will do better without _me_ there, serving you cucumber sandwiches.”

He winces, stealing a wary look at the lunch bag. “Cucumber sandwiches?”

She laughs. “It’s… from one of Johnny’s favorite movies. _‘How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days’.”_

“Ah. Well… cucumber sandwiches on a poker table? _That’ll_ do it. _Lose a guy,_ I mean.”

“You’d _think.”_ Julia smiles at him. “Anyway, I think it’s great. You guys doing that. You should make it a regular thing. Pick a day, once a week, twice a month or something.”

He grins back, squinting in the sun. “Oh, we plan to.” Seeing her reach for the bag, he gently pushes her away, unpacking the lunch and handing her an open box. “It’s _warm._ When did you...?”

“Stopped by the staff room. Flashed my badge. Asked to use the microwave. You know… official police business.” She winks, laughing as his Adam’s apple jerks up and down. Reaching to stroke his arm, she gives him a soft smile, “Hungry?”

He sticks a fork-full of rice in his mouth, eyes watering with delight. _“Shtarvin’.”_

\------------------

 

Walking back to his car, Stevenson revels in the sound of their banter as it follows him all the way to the end of the park. Soon enough the noises of traffic take over, the voices die out, and so does his smile.

It came up once more. The _quote,_ that is. About four months ago. He wanted to go with them to Berlin - even bought a ticket - but at the last minute decided to stay. There were things to take care of, things he didn’t want her to handle, things that he himself had handled once before. And, just like thirty three years ago, he felt helpless, despaired, lost. Sitting in his car , he’d opened the browser on his phone and typed _‘things to take care of after someone dies’_ into the search bar.

It hit him after skimming over the first web page: it was useless. There was no house to check on, no known relatives to notify, no pets or dependants to care for, no bank account to close, no credit cards to cancel. There was nothing. Just the widening void in his heart. There were probably people in Quinn’s life that he didn’t know about. He’d already called Astrid to make sure someone was meeting them at the airport. He didn’t know anyone else. He wondered if he should order a coffin, but wasn’t sure whether or not the body would be brought back in one. He couldn’t arrange a funeral or a service without hearing from Julia: he didn’t have a date, nor was he sure the Agency - or the other people in Quinn’s life - wouldn’t have a different arrangement in place.

In the end, he called Leonid, and together they drove to Baltimore to verify the prepaid burial plan and site that were chosen by Julia and Quinn almost a decade ago. That done, they ordered a headstone. Well, they _attempted to._ On the form, he started scribbling _“Beloved friend, father and…”_ then stopped, and, choking back tears, striked it through. He didn’t even have a _name,_ let alone a _dedication._ All jokes aside, he wasn’t _entirely_ sure how the cemetery would react to Quinn’s last known ‘request’ to have _Crazy Badass Motherfucker_ written on his headstone. Under the befuddled stare of the man behind the counter, he wrote down the quote - the _correct and full_ quote this time - and handed it over. He couldn’t really explain to the man how it was possible that he knew what to say about Quinn, what he meant to him, despite not knowing his real name or date of birth.

His phone buzzes as he’s about to shift into drive. Shaking his head in amusement, he stares at the WhatsApp message from an unknown number. His ‘handler’ used up all his allowance to get a prepaid ‘burner’ sim. _Apparently._

-All set for tonight?

Andrew rolls his eyes.

-Your mom’s gonna kill me. She’ll figure it out and shoot me dead

-She won’t. I’m being careful. I’d be more worried about my dad. If I were you

He’s worried about _both._ And s o is his handler’s _other_ asset - Leonid. It really doesn’t matter who figures it out first - the ex-CIA employee (he just goes with _employee -_ less creepy) or the homicide detective - either way, they’re royally fucked.

-Again… Why can’t your aunt watch you at home?

-<rolling eyes emoji> Coz she needs to be home by 11. Means they’ll have to cut their date short. Plus if I stay at your place they can come home together and… you know. Coz I won’t be there.

Andrew chokes on his own saliva, starts coughing.

-You never said it, I never heard it. I don't know you. Stop messaging me

-<crying with laughter emoji> So we good?

A sigh. Another shake of his head.

-Yeah. We’re good. I’ll think of something. Pick you up 7:45

-Copy. Gotta go. Mom’s gonna call soon, gotta swap sims

-Bye, slugger. See you soon. Plans for tonight? A movie?

-Die Hard 2. Or Sleepless in Seattle. Your choice <winking emoji>

His ‘handler’ goes offline. Stevenson drops the phone on the passenger seat, starting the engine again. Damn right it’s his choice. _Yippee ki yay, motherfucker._

 

**Same day, 9:37PM**

“Izh ‘at a yesh?” he slurs around the spoon in his mouth.

Julia moves the wine bottle, glasses, and coffee cups out of the way and pushes the plate with her chocolate fudge to the middle. She says nothing, holding his eyes with a smile that does unspeakable things to his heart as she scoops another spoonful and takes a bite herself.

“You know I don’t share fudge…” she says with a sly squint, leaning forward then adding: “With just _anyone.”_

He manages to swallow before a burst of laughter nearly propels the dessert out of his mouth. She doesn’t share fudge, _period._ Julia is a generous person. Um… to a degree. For instance: if you have her heart - it’s likely forever; if you touch her chocolate cake - you’re toast. In all the years he’s known her, he’s managed to steal maybe ten spoonf uls, each all but paid for with his life, later forgiven on account of _‘being more useful with limbs attached’_ (an actual quote). He was actually _fed_ fudge just _once_ \- about twenty seconds ago. He sinks his spoon into the hot creamy texture, choking back a wave of relief so powerful that his chest almost explodes in fireworks of joy.

Her fingers gently curl around his wrist. He looks up, drops the spoon, and opens his palm for her. “Peter…” her touch is warm and assured. “It’s like I said to Max: I don’t think it can ever be a ‘no’. Not to you,” she says softly, stroking with her thumb. “But I need time. Things are… _confusing._ What I’m feeling, what I want, what _you_ want. I’m just… I’m scared, Peter.”

“I know,” he breathes, leaning closer and pressing first his lips and then his cheek to her knuckles. “Jule, I know. I’m scared too. Terrified. Like never before in my life. And I won’t fuck it up this time.”

“Well, you weren’t the only one who fucked it up last time.” Julia squeezes his hand. “And you’re not the only one who has to make it right _this_ time, alright? We’ll just…” She takes a breath. “I mean, we’re in no rush, right? No pressure. As far as Johnny’s concerned, we’re on the same page… More or less. And you and I... We can take it slow. We can…” wrinkling her nose and smirking, _“... date.”_

He laughs, kisses the inside of her wrist, softly opening her palm before placing it on the side of his face. “Are you asking me out?”

“What? _Fuck_ no. That’s not the _rule._ You ask _me_ out.”

“There’s no _rule!_ A girl can ask a boy. Last time _I_ checked.”

She bores her eyes into his. “I say it’s a rule.”

“You know what? Fine.” He falls back, not letting go of her hand, and draws a virtual circle above and around the table with his finger. “So _I_ say, I already _asked,_ you agreed, and this is a first date.”

“Says _who?”_

“I’m sorry, which part of the ‘I say’ confuses you? The ‘I’ or the ‘say’?”

Huffing a semi-defeated snort, she raises a finger. “Ok, _fine,_ you asked, I agreed, this is a date. But from now on, we play by the rules.” He opens his mouth and closes it back as the finger moves closer. _“My_ rules.”

Laughing again, he shakes his head at her. “Nine years, Jule. Nine years, and you’re still the same adorable weirdo.”

She shuts him up with another spoonful of fudge and ice-cream. “Don’t remember you complaining the first time around.”

\---------------------------------------

Among the many things that he _didn’t_ miss about Philly is the late August weather. It’s past 10pm . They just left the restaurant five minutes ago, and already his new pants and short-sleeve dress shirt are sticky with the friction that he remembers all too well. Julia’s jacket is hanging over his left forearm, leaving her in her thin sleeveless blouse. Her beautiful, tanned arms are covered with a shimmering gloss that, in all honesty, he’s rather _fond_ of, especially under _radically_ different circumstances. Now, _that’s_ a thought that makes it easier to walk. Shaking his head to wipe away the image for later, he tears his eyes from her neck and shoulders. How do you _date_ someone who makes your skin tingle and burn just by walking by your side? How’s he going to take it _slow_ when he knows every inch of her body, the way she likes to be kissed, touched, held. How...

 _Seriously, change the subject._ They turn onto the promenade, the piers and river bank on their left, stretching out into the distance. They both sigh with delight as the breeze gently moves through the folds of their clothes. It’s a sticky Philly breeze, carrying a faint fishy scent, but it’s a welcome distraction in the midst of the damp stillness.

They stroll together in silence, in no particular direction. They used to do that a lot, albeit with a couple of distinct differences. First, they’d always hold hands or have their arms around each other, then stop to kiss for no reason, or just hug and hold one another. Second, they’d never gotten this far from home: his place, which used to be _their_ place, is almost an hour drive from here.

In the past, they could never have afforded a restaurant like this. It’s not the fanciest or most expensive, but on the website it looked intimate and inviting. And there was one great review on their hot chocolate fudge with a side of vanilla ice-cream. He’s not a huge chocolate fan himself, but even he had to admit that it was quite sumptuous. Not to mention what _really_ came on the side - a true glimmer of a long lost dream that a mere week ago seemed utterly inconceivable. Of course, when he planned on taking her there, he didn’t know how the exquisite dessert would end up holding every hope for the future he ever had. All he really wanted was to see that mind-bogglingly sweet expression on her face that only two things could ever invoke: a well made chocolate cake, and him.

But the main reason they’d never wandered this far was that there was always a chance that he’d get called away. His bags were always packed, the freezer stuffed with boxes of food, and his phone was always in his pocket. Just remembering it - the dreaded phone call, both their faces falling, hearts squeezing, both thinking that not only are they parting but that they might not ever see each other again - he feels his eyes burning with tears, even now.

He steals a look at Julia, feeling the lump in his throat become denser. He never took her for granted. Every time he’d come home he half expected to find it empty, with or without a note on the pillow saying that she couldn’t do it anymore. In the end, he’d left her with an infant in her arms and never looked back. It’s been nine years, but she’s still here, placing her heart and her hopes in his hands. He’ll be damned if he fails her again.

His phone is in her purse. It’s not on silent, but the only reason for that is Johnny. About half an hour into their dinner they got a message from Stevenson saying that they can take their time; Johnny had dozed off on his couch, so he’s keeping him overnight and will bring him home in the morning.

Yesterday was the first time he saw his son since they left Berlin. He didn’t really have a plan: he was hoping to bring Johnny to see his apartment, show him around, maybe take him to the park on the other side of town where he and Julia once dreamt of playing with their children. In the end, though, they barely made it to the park in Julia’s neighborhood before leaping into each other’s arms and spending the rest of the evening snuggled under a tree, talking and watching the sky changing colors.

Quinn sat with his back propped against the trunk of an old oak, arms and legs locked around his most treasured possession. As for Johnny - he was in a heaven of warmth and bliss, lying peacefully on his father’s chest, bathing in the soft evening sun that filtered through the leaves, his body rocking like a drifting boat on the tides of his father’s breath. From time to time he would lazily loll his head to the side so that he could look up as they’re talking. _Every_ time he did that, one of his father’s hands would come up to stroke his hair. Neither of them wanted the evening to end, ever. And both of them knew they had a lifetime of moments like this ahead of them.

And that’s how they got to the infamous ‘dating tips’. They were sitting together in silence as the last flickers of sunlight faded away, replaced by the yellow glow of the street lights, when Johnny suddenly looked up and said, “Mom’s been crying a lot.”

Quinn’s heart dropped. “I know,” he breathed out, tightening his grip on Johnny.

“I saw her looking at your pictures, the old ones and the ones we made in Berlin. And she was crying really hard.”

“Johnny… you shouldn’t be…” He paused, covering Johnny’s head with his palm and holding it to his chest as he breathed a sigh in his hair. “I know you’re worried, snuggle-bug. Mom and I hadn’t seen each other in a very long time before you guys came to Berlin. You know that. For a long time we thought we’d never see each other again.”

Johnny’s nod rubbed against Quinn’s shoulder, eyes still locked with his father’s. “Mom loves you very much, Dad.”

He dropped his head to touch his son’s forehead. “I love her too, Johnny. I love both of you so much. Sometimes I want to grab you and take you away, to a deserted island where you’ll be just mine.” That said, with a hint of a mischievous grin, he tiptoed his fingers up Johnny’s side. Pinning him harder against his chest, he tickled him mercilessly until the air filled with shrieking giggles.

Panting and snorting, Johnny finally managed to contain his father’s sneaky fingers, and, holding his own arms on top of his, just in case, smiled even wider. “So, you gonna ask her out on a date?”

Quinn remembered his message to Julia that afternoon and grinned with a hint of boyish uncertainty. “I think I _kinda_ already have.” _I’ll pick you up tomorrow at eight._ That’s... sort of asking someone out, right?

Johnny frowned. “Dad… _kinda?”_

A meteor shower of loud kisses hit Johnny all over the face. “Who died and made _you_ the dating expert, huh? You sassy snuggly midget! She didn’t tell me to take a hike, so I don’t think I’m doing too bad for myself. I said I’d pick her up tomorrow at eight. And since you’re such a know-it-all, you’ll help me choose an outfit. I gotta look handsome.”

“Dad…” a snort, “...you’re always handsome.”

Quinn shook his head and propped Johnny up higher. “Well, then I gotta look… _hot._ You know ‘hot’, right?”

“Duh.”

He ended up looking ‘super hot,’ to quote his son’s ecstatic scream as he walked out of the dressing room at Bloomingdales. The shirt and belt were Johnny’s choice. The slacks and shoes - his. They stood in front of the mirror, a tall man, fidgeting and turning from side to side, thinking that he used to wear these better when he was younger, and a serious nine-year-old boy under his arm, nodding in approval and beaming with excitement.

Holding Johnny to his side and winking at him in the mirror, he suddenly imagined a young man getting ready for a date of his own. He wondered if a boy his age would be too cool for school to ask for his dad’s help in picking out an outfit. But then he nearly burst with pride, thinking how beautiful he’ll be when he grows up, a real heartbreaker. When Julia was pregnant, he used to say that he hoped their son would look like her. She used to say that she wanted him to have his father’s eyes and his smile. In the end, they both got their wish.

Cackling at the memory, he snaps back to the evening that gave rise to this shopping excursion in the first place. Julia smiles, giving him a warm sideways stare. “Thinking about Johnny?” He raises an eyebrow. She laughs, pointing to his face. “You’ve got that ‘Johnny look’.”

He snickers. _“Johnny look?”_

“Yeah. The kinda look that makes my uterus skip a beat and want to have a dozen more with you.”

He swallows, unsure what to say, other than, obviously, _‘let’s go’,_ then puffs out his chest and breaks into a cheeky smile. “You always talk about how many kids you wanna have on the first date? Coz Jule… for most men…”

She elbows him hard, giggling. “Kinda explains why I’m still single, doesn’t it?”

No, it really doesn’t. His heart skips a beat. Any man with half a brain would have one look at her and know she’s not the kind of woman you let slip away. She’s stunning, sexy, caring to a fault, loyal, soft and funny on the outside, made out of solid steel on the inside. It’s been nine years: she was married, dated, had long relationships. And yet, here she is, walking by his side, giving him a second chance. He’ll take it as slow as she wants, will wait years if that’s what she needs. Because he knows her: she’s stubborn. But once she makes up her mind, she’s all in.

“So…” he holds out his elbow, waiting for her to wind her arm around his. “How are we doing so far? Date-wise?”

Julia gives him an incredulous, borderline scornful look. “I can’t tell you _now._ Everyone knows you can only judge a first date after the first kiss.” He starts leaning in and she ducks back. “At the _door._ After you take me _home,_ silly.”

“What kind of a bullshit rule is _this?_ And who’s _everyone?”_

“I dunno… it’s a _rule.”_ Counting on her fingers for emphasis: “You go on a date, have dinner or whatever, walk around, talk… then the guy kisses you at the door… and then you know.”

“Can I pick _any_ door? How about that one?” He points to the entrance of a restaurant on the pier they’re passing.

“Nope. _My_ door.”

He sighs in frustration. “Fine. Your loss. I’ve been told I’m quite a kisser.”

Julia stops, frowning. “You’ve been _told?”_

“Yep,” he grins, resuming their stroll and dragging her after him. “I might not have been on as many _dates_ as you, but… I’ve had my share of fun.”

“Oh yeah? Well, I’ve had fun _too._ And for the record, I’ve had better _kissers.”_

“Liar.”

“Am not!”

“Yeah? Like who? Who kissed you better than I did?”

“You want like… details?”

“No, Jules, I want names. And addresses. And your gun.” He cracks up. “And an alibi.”

Her laughter dies out as she leans on his arm and slides her hand into his. “I’m kidding, silly. You know that, right? _”_

He spreads his fingers to let hers through and smirks. “Oh, so I _can_ kiss you right now?”

“What? No! That’s not… You _know_ that I mean!”

“Nah, I’m not that smart.” He hooks his elbow deeper around her arm and pulls her closer.

Giggling, Julia pushes him away. He half-sighs, half-growls in defeat, as usual, finding his consolation prize in her victorious smile.

When she strokes his forearm and presses her lips to his shoulder, he laughingly shakes her off. “Hey! If I don’t get to stick my tongue down your throat, you don’t get to kiss my arm.”

\---------------------------------------

In the end, they take the Blue Line to the Summerfest. It wasn’t so much a joint decision as it was Julia sprinting towards the approaching train, Quinn chasing after her. He’d learnt never to let his guard down around her the very first time they went for a walk together many years ago: chasing a bus for five blocks will do that to you. The moment the restaurant door closed behind them, he felt a familiar thrill sharpen his senses. It struck him there and then that it wasn’t unlike the adrenaline rush he’d feel on a mission, except it was fueled by something entirely different. As if every cell of his body awakened at once, invigorated, craving the unexpected. Like coming home and catching a child as he leaps into your arms.

The RiverRink Summerfest is actually one thing that he _did_ miss about Philly. They get off the train and approach, holding hands. W atching her dance and skip in excitement, he can’t help a smile . He’s thinking… stuffing chunks of cotton candy into each other’s mouths, maybe winning a huge plush bear for her again, rollerskating. He’s _not_ thinking what _she’s_ thinking. And by the time h e does - it’s _way_ too late.

 _Motherfucker!!! Every… fucking… time!!!_ He leaps after her the moment she lets go of his hand and bolts into the crowd. He’s a great sprinter, much faster than she is, always has been. But the place is packed, and she’s smaller. He keeps crashing into people, jumping around young kids, muttering apologies and swearing under his breath. To make things worse, his new fancy dress shoes were not made for _walking_ , let alone _running._

At the very end, she slows down, looking back to find him with her eyes. She waits for him to come close enough so that he won’t miss the gondola, then hops in. Growling in frustration, he follows and drops next to her on the bench, fully remembering now how this adventure always ends.

She’s panting. He leans closer, burrows his eyes into hers: “You’re a batshit crazy fucking lunatic,” he says, frowning but fully aware that his eyes give him away.

She bobs her head hard, laughing with growing exhilaration, then grabs his hands. “This time!” she breathes out, smiling like a happy child. “It’ll work. _This_ time. I know it will.”

He shakes his head and drops it on top of hers, a familiar wave of exasperation and joy washing over him. “What am I gonna do with you?” he sighs.

But then, he knows _exactly_ what - he’s done it many times before. Gently freeing his hands, he turns them palms up, solid as steel, waiting for her to get a better hold on him. Her fingers slide on top and he locks them in an iron grip.

Her eyes flash with a mix of fear and anticipation. “Ok. Ready.”

“I won’t let go,” he promises.

She nods, taking a deep breath. “I know.”

The Ferris wheel leisurely winds them into an ascent. It took him three or four times, but he finally managed to pinpoint the exact height at which it happens. Ever since, he’d always been prepared the moment their gondola would rise about ten feet off the ground. It’s not about the height, he knows. Julia is a climber, and it’s not just trees: she used to be an indoor climbing instructor, and would beat him to the top at least eight times out of ten. He was never able to fully understand what it was about the Ferris wheel that gave her the willies, and neither was she. His best guess was and still is that it has to do with the wobbling of the gondola as the axis regains the vertical position.

“Are we there?” She squeezes his hands harder, warily looking around before fixing her eyes on his face again. “Oh God, I think we passed it! Are we at ten feet?”

Quinn opens his arms to catch her just in time as she suddenly shrieks and leaps forward. “We are _now,”_ he huffs a smile into her hair, holding her to him.

“Motherfucker!” she laughs into his chest.

“Yep.”

 _“Next_ time.”

He rolls his eyes and wraps more of him around more of her, lowering his head to reach her ear. “Stubborn ass,” he whispers, stroking her back. She nods and giggles, her hair tickling the side of his face as her arms settle in a tighter circle.

Quinn rests his cheek on the top of her head. The wrinkly Delaware river curves below, splashing with silver glitter, flickering and dancing in the colorful glow of the Summerfest. The city stretches on both sides, scattering in all directions, drowning in light under the deep-dark blue of the night summer sky.

He holds his breath, unable to tear his eyes from this sight that holds so much peace that it seeps into his very soul. “Jesus, I forgot how beautiful it is,” he mutters.

“It’s just Philly,” Julia snickers under his chin.

He shakes his head. “It’s home.”

It wasn’t always home. Truth be told, he wasn’t even supposed to stay here. He moved to Philly shortly after completing his training, a totally random decision made during a late night drunken talk with Leonid. He was invited to stay with him for a couple of days, which quickly turned into weeks, then months. Finally, he moved out of the small apartment above the dry cleaning shop into a one-bedroom on the neighboring block. He was never particularly fond of Philly, nor did he have anything against it. He stayed out of habit, and lack of reason to move. That same year, he met Julia.

 _‘Home is not a place’_ is a cliché , alright. But he’s seen enough of the world to know that no truer words have ever been spoken. Home is not really _anything._ It’s an abstract term implying a state of mind that you miss when you lose it, or a jolt in your heart when you find it again. And whether it’s the lights of the city, being in the arms of the woman you love, or the fact that this is where you held your child the night he was born - it doesn’t matter. When you’re home, you just know it.

A soft tug at the back of his shirt makes him look down and smile. He tickles her neck. “Miss me?”

Julia snorts, hugging him harder. “Remembered something.”

“Better be good. I’m on a date.”

He can’t see much of her face, but he feels her lips tremble in a smile. “She hot?”

“Incredibly,” he whispers in her ear as his hand comes to nestle her head. Inhaling deeply, he turns just enough to linger over the tip of her jawline with an achingly gentle, wistful kiss. “Although…” playfully rubbing his nose in the same spot, “She’s got all these rules and shit. Dating used to be simpler, you know? There was this _one_ girl who jumped me before I got a chance to close the door to my apartment.”

Julia giggles, leaning deeper into him. “That was a fun night.”

“It was.” His arms draw a tighter circle, helping her settle on his knees. “So… you remembered something?”

She’s quiet for a moment, just breathing into his shirt. “In Berlin, two days before I left, when you told me about what happened with Dar… you said you loved me.”

“I did.” He presses his lips to her temple. “And I do.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I didn’t expect you to. I mean, we never… even back then, we never…”

She interrupts him. “We should have.”

Quinn rubs her back. “Jule, it’s ok. I know. I’ve always known. Nothing’s changed.”

“Peter, _everything’s_ changed. And I want to say it, and hear it. Every day. Because I do love you. I love you so much I can’t breathe when I think about it.”

Her last words are muted by a deafening blast of fireworks. The night sky lights up with shimmering bursts of color. They both flinch, holding each other even closer. Laughing, Quinn finds her ear. “See, I never knew my heart could do _that!”_

The Ferris wheel begins its descent, the gondola wobbling in the wind. They’ve been on this wheel thirty six times: Julia’s face tucked in his chest, his embrace keeping her safe. Sometimes she’d ask him to describe the view, but she’d never once dared to look for herself. Suddenly, just like that, she pulls away, eyes opening wide before Quinn even realizes what’s happening. He keeps his arms around her, just in case, her hand still clasping at his shirt.

“Hey!” Quinn laughs, a wave of awe and admiration rippling through. “So thirty seven is our lucky number, huh?”

She slowly shifts her gaze and gasps at the sight of his face on the canvas of a deep-blue sky, shredded by the stripes of fireworks. Her mind flashes back to the hallway at his place. The elevator doors open and he steps into her life: pale, exhausted, dust in his hair, on his clothes, a rifle on his shoulder - a soldier, a fighter, hardened by war, his face etching a tale that she thought she would never get to hear. It’s there now, too, years of death and endurance in every wrinkle. She was there to watch it consume him, mission after mission, and she was there to watch him let go, walk away, come home.

He smiles, the arm around her bending slowly until there’s not even air between them. “My beautiful brave girl,” he whispers, grinning wider and rubbing a wrinkled nose against hers. “You’re right.” He kisses her face, no longer able to stop himself. “We _should_ say it everyday.” He stops, “Hmm… _Although…”_ With a coy smile: “I’m not sure how dropping the ‘L’ bomb on the first date fits into the _rules.”_

Breathing a laugh, Julia pinches his side. “Fuck the rules.”

“Well, in _that_ case…” He rests his mouth on hers for a long, quiet moment, then pulls away just enough to see her eyes. They open slowly, enveloping him in the mind-numbing sweetness that he craved for years, calm and assured, holding all the peace he ever wanted. “I love you so much, Jule,” he says and kisses her again - hard, deep, possessive - a searing promise, inexhaustible gratitude.

They look at each other long after their lips part. The haze in her eyes makes him dizzy, confident. She laughs when that smug grin she knows all too well spreads across his face. “God, you’re full of yourself.”

He squints, wrinkles his nose again, raises an eyebrow. “Judges? _Your_ rules, Jule. You said _after the first kiss._ How am I doing so far?”

She furrows her brow. “Well...”

Swearing and laughing, he slides a hand under her knees, picks her up and moves all the way to the edge of the bench “I swear to God, Jules!” motioning to throw her overboard.

She doesn’t even flinch, placing a soft hand on his cheek and pulling his head down. “I’ll tell you when you kiss me by the door,” she jests, giggling next to his mouth. “But hey, the good news is… You might get to practice on the way home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NS- who knew? After the Dar talk, and the Carrie talk, and the 'killer' talk, I get stumped on a hug. Argh! Thank you for keeping me sane (and for not shooting me). Much bunny love as ever!


	21. Day 3 - The Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (in Johnny's voice)  
> Previously in A Broken Cup...
> 
> So, yeah, the shortened version of this day was _SUPER_ short! Basically, we got my dad coming over to pick me up at usual time and my mom insisting we stay in and have dinner together. It's not like we have a _routine_ or anything, Dad and I, I mean. It's only been 2 days since we started spending the evening together. So, Dad stayed, I showed him my room, all of my posters, and my books, and my comic books. Then we had dinner together, which was kinda cool. Then, after A LOT of talk, we decided to watch DS9 (it's really hard to explain WHY, but we had our reasons). Anyhow..... that's where we left off the last time.
> 
> Oh, almost forgot. Remember how the night before my parents went on their first NOT date (duh!)? And I had this whole thing planned out where Andrew takes me to 'the movies' and I spend the night at his place? So that they can stay out late? Well, this morning, when he brought me home, we saw my dad leaving. And now I'm kinda thinking... Um, well, you know. 
> 
> Anyway... Day 3.

**Day 3, 6:58AM**

The doorbell tears through her sleep like a shockwave of drumming vibrations. It takes a moment to shed the blurry images of her dream as her consciousness shifts from the subtle hints of reality to a full state of alertness. She hasn’t woken up like this in a long while. It happened quite often when she was a rookie, taking on extra shifts, working nights and graveyards back-to-back. She’d wake up having trouble remembering what day - or even what _time_ of day - it was. Then again, later, when Johnny was a baby.

 _Johnny!!!_ She bolts up, still disoriented and now equally dizzy from the sudden motion, leaping out of bed and sprinting to the front door. Cursing herself for being unable to say goodbye last night, for letting it go on as long as it did, she’s wondering if she’d slept through her morning alarm, and if Stevenson had called before bringing Johnny back. He said he’d drop him off around eight. She’s supposed to be in the DA’s office by nine - at the latest - for the deposition. Johnny has another pool party; she was going to have his bag ready, make his breakfast, not to mention she still needs to go over her testimony. _Fuck!!!_

She’s yanking the door open, muttering apologies, when the reality suddenly re-asserts itself. The rest of her speech now choked in her throat, she just stares, leaning heavily on the handle. Quinn looks as sharp, bright, and cheery as ever, standing there with his meticulously ironed clothes and ridiculously shiny belt buckle, freshly shaved, the strap of a laptop bag over his shoulder and an annoyingly cocky smile twinkling in his eyes. Truth be told, she shouldn’t be surprised - _or_ irritated for that matter - he’s always been a quick riser. No matter how late they’d go to sleep, she’d still be dragging herself out of bed and he'd already be in the kitchen making her breakfast, showered and zippy, with that cockamamie bed sheet tied around his waist.

“What time is it?” she grunts, struggling to keep her eyes open as the adrenaline rush wears off.

“Um… seven _...ish?”_

As if on cue, her 7AM alarm goes off. “Fucking swiss clock,” she grumbles, rubbing her eye, but unable to hold back a smile any longer and impatiently waving him over. “Come on in, already. Don’t just stand there.”

He steps in, laughing and unceremoniously peeling her off the side of the door, then slamming it shut. His free arm holding her up, he breathes a chuckle as she leans against him, closing her eyes with a small sigh and every intention of falling back asleep standing. “Still not a morning person, huh?”

“Mphhh...” Julia rubs the side of her face on his chest, coyly opening one eye. “That bar in the end? _Big_ mistake.”

“Really? I kinda liked it.”

Another huff: “I remember.”

“And I liked afterwards,” he adds, tracing achingly slow kisses down her neck.

Giggling, she pinches his back. “I _remember.”_

Quinn stops at the base of her throat, inhaling deeply and pressing against her as his face slides up towards hers. “You smell like your night cream,” he whispers, breathing her in. “And bed.” Then, with a sly grin: “And my cologne from last night.”

“Well, I was in _no_ condition to take a shower, was I?” She grunts, half jokingly. 

He finds her mouth, sinking impatiently into its warmth, “I _remember.”_

Both acutely aware of how slippery this slope can quickly get, they reluctantly pull apart. Fully awake now, Julia finally notices him holding a cardboard tray with two Starbucks cups and a brown paper bag. “Awww, you brought me coffee!”

“Ok, _that…”_ moving the coffee further away as she tries to snatch a cup, “...remains to be _seen.”_ He smirks, stroking her disarrayed hair. “C’mon. I only have half an hour. You wash up - I’ll set the table?” Not waiting for her reply, he nudges her towards the bedroom and, with a sense of purpose, strides to the kitchen.

“You’re not thinking of making that awful grilled cheese sandwich again, are you?” Julia calls after him.

He reappears in the doorway, squinting. “Ok, one - _ouch,_ and _officially_ offended. And two…” lifting the paper bag, “Got bagels and spreads from the place downstairs. Got one for Johnny, too. Should I put in in the fridge for now or…?”

“Nah, he’ll be home in less than an hour. Just leave it out.”

She’s back in five minutes, hair pulled up in a ponytail, a pair of stretchy pants and a long blouse replacing her creased PJs. Neatly laid on the dining table are two rye bagels, each halved: one with what appears to be a sundried tomato and feta spread, the other - salmon, cream cheese and dill; both her favorites. Next to a pile of napkins, there are two chilled bottles of water and a plate with grapefruit wedges. And he’s _still_ fussing in the kitchen.

Julia shakes her head, mocking a disappointed voice. “What, no pudding cups or Fruit Loops?”

 _“Fuck,_ no. I’m not wasting the _good_ stuff on you.” Sneering, Quinn walks back in, a cup of coffee in each hand. “Um… I _may_ have fucked up. I put sugar in yours, but… not sure how you take it now.”

“Mphh, look at me,” pointing to her pillow-wrinkled face. “Beggars can’t be choosers. I’d take your vile ‘black-no-sugar’ right now if I had to.”

Seeing how he just stands there, with no intention of bringing the coffee _to_ her, Julia closes the distance herself. Assuming the taller cup is her latte, as opposed to the smaller one - probably his Americano - she impatiently reaches to grab it.

Just like before, in a swift evasive maneuver, his hand moves away. “So, what you’re saying is: you really, _really_ want the coffee,” he taunts with a merciless smirk, holding the cup way above his head now.

Julia weighs her options. She could take him - wouldn’t be the first - but they both know she wouldn’t go for it while he’s holding two cups with potentially scalding liquid. Irked out of her mind, but playing along, she crosses her arms. “What do you want?”

He squints. “I want my _answer.”_

“What?!!” He’s _got_ to be kidding her.

Pointing to the door. “You _promised._ You said… I kiss you by the door and you’ll give me an answer.” She draws a breath to blast back, but he beats her to it. “And no, _against_ the door _doesn’t_ count! I’m gonna need the actual _words.”_

Breathing a chuckle at the memory and feeling herself blush a little, she mutters a long string of curses. “Fine. What do you want me to say?”

“I dunno. See, this morning I woke up, thinking… hey, maybe on my way to work I’ll stop by, bring my girlfriend a coffee…”

“What? _Bulshit!_ You _had_ to stop by. Your _car’s_ still here. You had to take a cab home last night you were so hammered. _Remember?”_

He does. _Vividly._ “Hey… don’t change the subject!”

“The subject of _what,_ exactly? A ‘girlfriend’? Really? What are you, ten?”

“Whatever you kids are callin’ it these days. A ‘girlfriend’ will do just fine.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake…” Seemingly deflating, Julia comes closer. “You silly, silly man…” she whispers, looking at him intensely as her arm winds leisurely around his waist. Pressing against him, her hand creeps up, the tips of her fingers grazing his abdomen, sliding up to his chest, then his throat. She feels him swallow, watching as his eyes begin to lose focus, holding him tighter as leans down with a soft moan. With his breath already on her lips, right before their mouths meld, she releases her hold of him at once, and, snatching her latte, jumps away, triumphantly sticking out her tongue. “Sucker!”

It takes him a moment, his blurry, black-and-white vision clearing gradually. All of his training, decades of combat experience… _Motherfucker!_ With an excessively disheartened sigh and utterly exaggerated puff of exasperation, he sets his own cup on the table, shooting her a narrow-eyed “Game _on.”_

Before he has a chance to sit down, Julia blocks his path, her hand laid firmly over his chest. He opens his mouth to ask if she really thinks it’s going to work _twice,_ but the curiosity takes over. He smiles as she pushes him back, nudging gently: once, then once more, until he’s trapped between her and the wall. Pressing against him, she grins deviously, taking two long sips from her latte. The joyous look in her watering eyes as she moans with pleasure makes him forget his disgraceful defeat. He shakes his head at her, laughing. “Let’s eat, you smug pain in the ass.”

“I thought you wanted an answer,” she sneers, looping her free arm around his neck. Rising on tiptoe, she motions to the table, purposefully taking another sip from her cup. “Best… boyfriend… ever…” she whispers, each word followed by a mind-numbing, breath-snatching, latte-flavoured kiss.

  


**Later that day, 9:25PM**

His breathing ragged and uneven, he tears eyes from Julia’s flushed face and turns his attention back to the screen. He’s fucked: now he’ll have to watch it again. He’d promised himself he’d stay focused, make mental notes of the things that he and Johnny might want to discuss. His mind is blank now, completely. It’s foggy, clouded over, every conscious thought forced out by the thudding of blood in his ears. He feels himself blurring, the world fading away, all but the scent of her hair and the sense of her thigh next to his.

He remembers the dinner, how easy it felt, how natural. He didn’t know where the plates were, so Johnny had shown him. They set the table together, chatting about Johnny’s school, their new comic book project, Quinn’s job. Long after nearly licking their dessert plates clean, they were still at the table, stuffed to the point of barely breathing. It was simple, blissful, normal.

He and Julia brushed hands and fingers while passing the food and again later, while tidying up. Leaning over the table to get Johnny’s plate, he casually slid a palm across her shoulders. She touched his forearm as a thank you when he poured a glass of wine, letting her fingers curl around and linger. They managed to kiss just once: the moment the door closed behind Johnny as he ran to the bathroom, Julia was in Quinn’s arms, mouths and hands finding tender relief. She whispered that she missed him; he said he wasn’t surprised but got smacked for it, thus adding quickly that he missed her more.

He sighs, moving his thigh away and clenching a fistful of his shirt to keep his hand in place. It takes all of his discipline and willpower to shake it off. It’s not just the two of them anymore, not like it used to be all those years ago when they’d just jump into bed whenever they felt like it. And it’s more than the fact that they just started seeing each other again, slowly making their way towards something that they both want and fear. Things will always be different now. _Many_ things, in fact. Finding time to be with each other is just _one._ He’s never wanted anything more than he wants this life. Nor has he ever felt as inadequate, as ill-equipped as he does at this very moment, realizing that he doesn’t even know if he can hold her, or kiss her, with Johnny around.

His phone comes alive with a short vibration burst. It’s on silent on purpose, so he doesn’t even bother to glance at the LED indicator. A few seconds later Julia’s elbow wedges into his ribs. He looks over, seeing her impatiently motion with her chin to the coffee table. Letting out a theatrical sigh, Johnny rolls eyes at the two of them. That gets him into a _shitload_ of trouble, mainly consisting of Quinn ruffling his hair and whispering “Smarty-pants,” as he reaches across to snatch his phone.

He feels silly, excited, naughty, flashing back to passing notes in school. It fits, too: he’s smitten like a horny teenager - might as well act like one. His heartbeat skyrocketing and his skin tingling, he flips the screen open.

-Stop it. You’re better at this than you think

His hand spasms. For a moment he just stares, holding his breath. His face feels on fire as he types back.

-I don’t know what’s ok and what’s not. With Johnny here. For us to do I mean

He watches her eyes widen, eyebrows slinking up. For a moment her whole face twitches, lips pursed as she covers her mouth to suppress a giggle.

Grunting, he drops the phone on his lap and looks away, suddenly self-conscious, embarrassed out of his mind. That’s when he feels her hand on his elbow. Without a word, she puts both their phones aside; then, instead of settling back in her spot, lifts his arm and crawls underneath. Smiling, she wriggles closer, until her tucked legs come to rest on his knees. And just like that she’s all around him, every inch of her - all his.

 _“This_ feel ok?” she mouths, looking up with a soft smile.

He nods, stroking her back, tentatively at first, then firmer, with more resolve, pressing her against him. “Yeah.”

“Ok then. How about…”

There’s a slight pressure against his thigh as she pushes herself up. She touches his face, fingertips sliding to his jawline as she closes the distance. Her lips on his mouth are warm, languid, soft, just past a brush.

They pull apart, eyes open, grinning. “Wow,” he tries, both snicking as no voice comes out.  

He slides a hand from her head to her back, sifting long strands between his fingers. Kissing him once more, Julia drops down. His heart beat slows, every muscle relaxing at once. Beaming from ear to ear as they both tousle his hair, Johnny snuggles closer as well. Quinn sinks deeper into the couch, holding them tight to his sides, stroking. Their arms stretch lazily across his abdomen, and for a long while afterwards it’s all very still.

\------------------------------

Ten minutes before the episode ends, Johnny pauses and, once again, sprints off to the bathroom.

Julia squints one eye. “He’s doing it on purpose, isn’t he?”

Snorting and wincing, Quinn scratches his forehead. “Wouldn’t put it past him, no.” It strikes him then that he has a newly freed, unused arm which immediately winds around her. “This is nice, though.”

“Yeah?”

He frowns, head ducking back a little. “You don’t think it’s nice?”

“Oh God… no! I mean… I do! It _is._ Very. I didn’t…” Huffing at her lack of composure, she growls into his shoulder. He digs her face out of his shirt with his nose, pushing and laughing as he drops kisses everywhere they fall, until she looks up again. She takes a breath, smiling. “I _meant…_ ” She traces a finger along the wrinkles next to his eye. “You look happy. Are you?”

He grins slyly as his memory instantly fetches the only answer he ever came up with. In all the years they were together, it never changed. “Deliriously and out-of-my-fucking-mind.”

She simpers, looking too damn cute and pleased with herself not to kiss. Which is exactly what he goes for, only to find the tips of her fingers blocking his mouth. “Ok. ‘Cause I was thinking…” His eyebrow shoots up. “Not _that,”_ she laughs, rolling her eyes and pinching him. “About Johnny.”

With Johnny being the only thing that can beat ‘that’, he looks even happier. “Yeah?”

Julia sits up. “Well… It’s his bedtime. In twenty minutes.” She rubs his arm, seeing his eyes well up in an instant. “Usually, he takes a shower, and I spend some time with him in his room before he goes to sleep.”

Feeling his chest tighten, a wave of panic rising to his throat, Quinn swallows hard. He’d been meaning to ask, but decided not to push it. Ever since the night that Johnny insisted on coming to say goodnight to him at the hospital, rebelling against the fact that his father never got to tuck him in, the image of sitting on his son’s bed, stroking his hair as he’s falling asleep, has followed him everywhere.

He clears his sandpaper dry throat. “You sure?”

“Am I _sure?”_ For a moment Julia frowns, puzzled by the question. His face is a turmoil, a stir of wistfulness and apprehension. She places a warm, steady hand on his cheek, making him look at her. “Oh, silly… of course I’m sure. About Johnny? I’m as sure as I’ll ever be. Look…” She strokes his shoulder. “You and I, what _we’re_ trying to work through, it has _nothing_ to do with you and Johnny. You’re his daddy, you always will be. Is that what you’re worried about?”

He shakes his head. “Maybe. I don’t know, Jule. But… yeah, maybe.”

Julia squeezes his arm. “Look, you don’t have to do it tonight if you feel unsure or uncomfortable, or if you’re not ready. You’ll have other nights. He’s not going anywhere.”

Tears come closer, creeping their way to his eyes, stinging and burning. It has nothing to do with being _unsure or uncomfortable,_ and everything to do with how much he loves her - both of them - how terrified he is of pushing too hard and breaking it all for good, losing his last chance.

“No. I want to,” he hears himself say, pushing past the doubt.

“Ok. Good.”

Just like that, his mind is in ‘briefing’ mode. “So… does he… when you stay with him, does he like doing something special? A routine?”

Julia shrugs. “Different things. Sometimes…” Pausing, she reconsiders. “Actually, it doesn’t matter. Because you’re not me. You guys will figure out your own routine.”

Quinn nods, feeling his heart leap with a burst of confidence. “Anything I need to do? His pjs? Make the bed?”

“Well… no. I don’t think so. I mean, he’s old enough to take a shower and change.” She winks, adding: “And a bit of a pain in the ass when it comes to doing everything on his own.” Looking at the time, she rolls her eyes, turns in the bathroom direction and shouts, “Jo? All ok in there? You won’t get to finish the episode.”

They both listen intensely for a moment, chuckling as the sounds of deliberately hasty fussing and a toilet flushing are followed by, “Coming!”

Julia turns to Quinn again. “So… just go for it. You guys will do just fine. Believe me, one thing that boy is _not_ is _shy._ If he needs something, he’ll ask for it, or show you where things are. And I’ll be right here. I’ll drop by to say goodnight to him when you guys are done.”

He nods, assured and visibly excited now. “Ok.”

He sits back just in time to open an arm for Johnny as soon as the bathroom door squeaks open. Johnny stops by the couch, assessing the situation and seemingly weighing his options, then, without a warning, instead of taking his place at Quinn’s side, plunges onto his lap. Coughing the wind knocked out of his lungs, Quinn slides deeper into the cushions, making room for the squirming, snuggly ball on top of him.

“You can’t watch DS9 like this,” he jokingly protests, rubbing Johnny’s back as he settles splayed on his chest, arms flung around him, head tucked under his chin and turned to Julia.

“Who cares? You and Mom missed half the episode anyway. We’ll finish it tomorrow.”

“What?!! Nonono,” Julia falls back, waving a finger. “I am _not_ watching the ‘Emissary’ for the fourth time, or any of the _others._ The deal was - one episode a day every time Dad comes over. You don’t finish - tough tomatoes. Watch it on your phone when you guys are out, or Dad can watch it at home - I don’t care. I don’t wanna be sixty by the time we finish Star Trek.”

Johnny scoffs, head shooting up from his father’s chest, eyes begging. One look at the resolve in Quinn’s eyes and he knows it’s going to be Julia’s way or the highway.

“Mom’s right.” Quinn slides a finger across Johnny’s forehead, moving away the hair flopped over it. “It’s a long series. And a deal’s a deal. I’ll catch up tomorrow and we’ll watch the second one together.”

Frowning, “Aren’t you guys going out tomorrow?”

Quinn looks at Julia. She places her head on his shoulder, next to Johnny’s face. “We are. Maybe. But _after_ you go to sleep. So, that doesn’t change our DS9 plans.” She strokes his hair. “Ok?” Johnny nods, beaming and freeing one arm from around his father to throw it around her. “Ok. So… what do you wanna do _now?_ You’ve got ‘bout ten minutes before bedtime.”

Johnny rubs his face on Quinn’s chest and grabs more of his mother, making her wriggle closer to them. “Family time.”

They all laugh a little, arms tightening all around. Quinn kisses both their heads, then leans down to let them drop kisses on his cheeks. “So, tomorrow we make some schedule changes. Move DS9 ten minutes earlier, maybe.” He tentatively scratches Julia’s neck. “For _family time?”_

Stretching up and laughing as his arm on her waist effortlessly lifts her all the way, she loops an arm around his neck. They kiss over their son’s head, holding each other and him, both flashing back to the night he was born, all wrapped in swaddling cloths and cuddled between them. They don’t pull apart for a long while, with no way of knowing that, just like then, his eyes are wide with amazement and awe, as if seeing this world for the first time. And just like then, he appears to be a little stunned and somewhat puzzled, but for the most part - safe and content.

\------------------------------

Nearly nine years old and four feet tall, Johnny gets a piggyback ride to his bedroom nevertheless. Compared to the deafening shrieks that filled the air once realizing that bedtime doesn’t mean saying goodbye, the breathless, squeaky chatter that he excitedly squeals in his father’s ear is really not that bad.

Julia smiles, misty-eyed, watching them disappear from view. For a moment she considers staying close, just in case they need anything, but then lets it go. She told him once there wasn’t a man in the world she’d trust more with Johnny than she trusted him. She meant it.

While Johnny washes up, Quinn takes a look around. He feels restless, eager, overwhelmed with the bliss of fatherhood all over again. He knows Julia said that Johnny is old enough to get his bed ready, but he does it anyway. She’s right, it’s _their_ choice of routine, their way of spending the last minutes of the day together. He removes the cover and folds it neatly. Looking around, he makes a mental note to ask Johnny where he usually puts it, for now placing it on the chair next to the desk. That done, he spreads the blanket over the bed, smoothing it with his palms, folds a triangle at the top for Johnny to hop in, then fluffs the pillow several times.

The whole process takes no more than a minute. He gets restless again, feeling he needs to do more. Thinking that maybe he’d tidy up, he scoffs at his own folly: it’s Julia’s house, even the pens on the desk are arrayed like a squad of parading Marines. He peeks outside to see if she’d stuck around, ready to catch him if he falls. The clinking of plates and glasses in the kitchen answers that question. Making sure the water in Johnny’s bathroom is still running - and chuckling at the thought that this is the most spy stuff that he’ll be doing for the rest of his life - he quietly sneaks out.

Julia hardly has a chance to turn and he’s already next to her, palms framing her face. Soapy gloves on her hands, she draws a breath to ask if something’s the matter, but he seals her mouth with his. He only breaks once - to whisper “I love you” - before kissing her again, soft, grateful brushes of lips, smiling as she murmurs she loves him too. Sprinting back to his new fatherly duties, he finally leaves her with a “Thank you. For everything,” and one last kiss, so hard and deep that once he lets her go, she needs a hand on the counter to steady herself.

Though seemingly improbable, Johnny gets even snugglier at bedtime. He moves all the way to the wall and slaps a vacated spot on his pillow. Laughing, Quinn kicks off his shoes, stretches next to his son, and gathers him to his chest.

“So… how was your first date?” Johnny asks, nestling his head on his father’s arm.

Quinn winks, “Made it to the _second_ one.” He lifts a palm and, snickering, they high-five.

“Did you get Mom flowers? Take her to a nice place?”

“Mom’s kinda weird about that. I used to bring her flowers sometimes when we first went out, before you were born. Then they’d die and she’d be sad. So I stopped. But we had a nice dinner, talked. It was great.”

“Yeah, mom’s weird sometimes,” Johnny chuckles. _“Funny_ weird.”

“She is.” Brushing the hair away from his son’s forehead, Quinn replaces it with a long kiss.

Which reminds Johnny: “Did you kiss her at the door?”

Oh, he’s starting to see where Julia gets her _dating rules_ from. “Yeah, I did,” he smiles.

Johnny nods approvingly, looking smart and adorably serious, then lightly scratches his father’s shoulder. “Dad?”

“Uhm?”

“C’mon…”

“C’mon what?”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “Dad, it’s ok, I _know.”_

Still puzzled: “You know _what?”_

“I know you spent the night.”

Quinn’s throat dries up in an instant, numbness spreading so fast he can’t feel his toes. “Excuse me?”

“I _saw_ you.”

“You _what?!!”_

“This morning. I saw you leaving here. When Stevie brought me home.”

“Stevie?” _Yep, ‘cause_ that’s _what bothers you about this conversation._

“Andrew. Stevenson. _Stevie._ ‘Tis what I call him.”

“Oh.” He can’t say whether his mind is racing or simply stuck, refusing to process it any further. Gently freeing his arm from under his son’s head, he rises on his elbow. “Johnny…”

“Dad, it’s cool. Really.”

No, it’s not. _Really._ He’s _this_ close to screaming for Julia to come bail him out . He’s never even put his son to sleep; how on Earth is he supposed to have the ‘Birds and the Bees Talk’ with him? And, what’s worse, he suddenly realizes that his nine-year-old might not _need_ one. He takes several calming breaths, breaking it down in his head and falling back to what he knows best. First and foremost - more intel.

“Ok.” He rubs Johnny’s back. “What _exactly_ do you mean when you say that I ‘spent the night’.”

Johnny grins. “You know...”

“Yeah. I know what _I_ know. I’m asking you what you think _you_ know.”

Frowning, seemingly befuddled, Johnny stammers a little. “I dunno… that you and mom… that you...” More quietly, and _much_ more hesitantly: “Got _lucky?”_

 _Jesus-Fucking-Christ._ He remembers their first conversations in Berlin, how proud he felt, how amazed he was by his son’s insatiable curiosity, listening to him talk with such passion about things he himself hadn’t even heard of until he was much older. ‘Amazed’ is not the word he’d use _now._

Johnny huffs. “Dad, I’m not a _baby.”_

Still thinking, Quinn shakes his head. _Right._ “Well… you’re not an adult _either.”_ He takes Johnny’s little hand into his, bringing it up to his chest and holding it there. “Ok. So here’s the deal. You and I… we’re not _friends._ Right? I mean, we _are._ But not _just._ You understand?”

“Coz you’re my dad.”

“Well, yes. Mainly.” He thinks some more, takes his time before speaking again. “I know, I’m new to this - being a dad and all. And maybe some of your friends’ parents are ok with discussing these things, I dunno. But I’m not. At least not when it comes to Mom and me. Look, I’m just gonna say, whatever you’re thinking, it’s a very private thing. Private between two people. You know what ‘private’ means, right?”

“I think so.”

“Ok.” Seeing Johnny’s face fall, tears gathering in his eyes, Quinn pulls up his hand, spreading it open and kissing his palm before placing it over his heart. “I love you, Johnny. Very, very much. But this is important. For me. And for how things are gonna be between us.”

Johnny sniffles a little, but keeps it together. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey. Don’t be. We’re talking. You said something that made me uncomfortable. I’m telling you that it did. And why. Alright?” Johnny nods again, wiggling closer. Quinn smiles. “So, look. If there’s ever something that I do, or say, that’s not ok with you, you know I’d want you to tell me. So I’m telling you now. You saying things like that bugs the hell out of me. I’m not ok with talking about it, not even with my grown-up friends. I think it’s very private. And personal. If you wanna talk about it in general - girls, relationships, things you see in movies, stuff like that - I’m ok with that. Anytime. But not when it comes to Mom and I. And I’m sure Mom would tell you the same thing. And, Jo, I _will_ tell her.”

“Dad…”

“Just lemme finish. Mom won’t get mad. And I’m not mad either. _This_ time. Listen, you know how Mom has all these rules?” They both chuckle a little. “Well, this is a rule now, ok? No making remarks about your parents’ personal life. We’ll revisit this topic when you’re older. But for now, it’s a deal breaker. You understand what that means?”

“If I do it again, you’ll get mad.”

“I don’t know about ‘mad’. But upset for sure. And disappointed. Because Mom and I trust you. We've been talking to you about things most people don't tell their kids, I guess. You've seen a lot the last few months already. It’s a decision we made _because_ we know you’re smart, and you understand more than most kids do. But I don’t want to regret it. I’m very proud of you. And I was thinking just now how you blew me away when we first started talking in Berlin. When I was your age, I hadn’t read as many books, or watched all these movies and series. I don’t want to start thinking it’s a bad thing.”

“It isn’t. I promise.” Johnny’s hand curls under Quinn’s as he tugs at his shirt.

“C’mere.” Quinn shifts, lifting him just enough to slide his arm underneath, swaddling him into into a tight embrace. “We ok?” he asks after a while, kissing a mop of hair under his chin. Johnny nuzzles his face deeper into his throat, bobbing his head as hard as he can. “Ok then. Now…” Grinning coyly, Quinn tickles his back. “Shall we talk about your _spy_ tactics?”

Johnny’s face shoots upwards. “What spy tactics?” playing along.

“Right.” Blocking out a snigger, Quinn’s face turns deadpan. “Maintaining plausible deniability?”

Not sure he knows what it means, but liking the sound of it, Johnny deadpans back. “Possibly.”

Quinn chuckles; it’s hard to say if he’s more amused or impressed. “Great answer. Important, _spy-_ wise.” He winks. “Sooo… we’ll just talk _hypothetically,_ and _assume_ you have an ongoing covert operation in place.”

Another nod, followed by a wary smirk. “Uh-huh.”

“So, _assuming_ you do, and _assuming_ I might know a thing or two about it myself. I could… _theoretically…_ give you a friendly piece of advice, right? Pro to pro?”

“I guess.” Johnny doesn’t flinch, going for an indifferent shrug, though a twinkle of excitement in his widening eyes and the restless fidgeting of his hand on his father’s back are dead giveaways.

“This morning, sitting in _Stevie’s_ car could be interpreted as - I’m _assuming_ \- surveillance? Gathering intel?”

“Um… _Maybe.”_

“And me coming out of your house in the morning _could_ mean that I slept over. But it could also mean...” He pauses, raising both eyebrows.

Johnny scratches the tip of his nose, thinking. “Thaaat…” His eyes light up. “...you stopped by in the morning?”

“For example. Yeah. I mean, it’s as valid an assumption as any, right?” Quinn pauses to let him process. “So, say, I did. What would tip you off? Because you’re right: if you’re assuming Mom and I came home last night and then you see me leaving in the morning, the most _plausible_ conclusion is that I slept over. But, say you’re an analyst. You’re given a video surveillance of the suspect from the night before and from this morning…”

Johnny barrels up, straight into sitting position. “You weren’t wearing the same clothes!!!”

“Yep.” Laughing, Quinn knocks him back into his arms. “You got it.”

In the best and the finest of spy tradition, they giggle, hug, and tickle a bit, squirming together, until Johnny finally settles down again. Wriggling up, he clasps Quinn’s face between his hands, beaming euphorically as he struggles to speak through wordless admiration. “Dad…”

Quinn smiles at the well-nigh revering look in his eyes. “Hey, don’t get _too_ fired up. ‘Cause I’m not done with you.”

Johnny squints, taken aback. “You’re not?”

Deliberately ignoring his chary stare, Quinn beats the pillow in to prop himself higher. “Can I assume that _Stevie_ suddenly asking to take you to the movies last night wasn’t _entirely_ his idea? And that Leonid is likely in on it as well? Max?”

He _did_ try to ‘turn’ Max. It just didn’t work. Max mumbled something about having already done _his_ part, and politely declined. Browsing through tons of super cool terms and phrases he’d acquired in the past four months, Johnny finally fetches the one he wanted.

“I can neither confirm nor deny,” he articulates with a cheeky smile, carefully emphasising every syllable.

Quinn laughs out loud, throwing his head back a little, then leaning closer and smothering his son in a suffocating hug. “You’re really something, you know that?” He smirks, “Yep. Rule number one. Never _ever_ burn your assets. Not even if you’re going down yourself. And, Jo, you _are_ going down.”

“But Dad…!”

“No ‘but Dad’. I mean it. It’s over - all of it: arranging babysitters, spying on me, hiding in the bathroom so Mom and I can be alone, and whatever else you had planned.”

“But why?”

“Because I said so, that’s why. Listen, Mom already asked you to stay out of it, and that should be enough. She needs her time, and so do I. This is not a romantic comedy. We’ve both been through a lot. We shouldn’t have to worry about you getting caught up in it, thinking how bummed you’ll be if it doesn’t work out.”

“Dad, I _told_ mom. I won’t be!”

“I believe you. I have to. Because I’d rather walk away from this now than have you hurt in the end. And Mom feels the same.”

Johnny considers it for a while, face falling, then finally tucks his head into Quinn’s chest. “Ok.” After a moment: “But dad… you’re _great_ together.”

“I know.” Quinn kisses his head. “Then trust us to work it out on our own. Believe me, _nobody_ wants it more than we do. Not even you.”

He stops when a faint beam of light creeps across the room as the door opens ajar with a soft screech. Julia steps in, arms crossed. Seeing the two of them snuggled together on Johnny’s bed, she approaches, letting out a mirthful laugh.

“This wasn’t supposed to be a pajama party, you know,” she admonishes flippantly, tousling both their hair as they scoot over, then sitting down on the edge.

Quinn gapes at her in silence, feeling his stomach twist in a knot. She’s changed into cozy home attire: loose tricot pants and a cap-sleeve tunic; her hair is down, gushing onto her shoulders, unruly and wayward as ever. He half-rolls back, speechless and dazzled, finding his arm weave around her on its own accord.

“I’ll be out in a bit,” he says, coughing a chortle at his hoarse and husky voice. “We’re just… sorting some things out.”

“Ok,” she smiles. “I’ll just say goodnight now.” Leaning over Quinn, she drops two butterfly kisses on Johnny’s cheek and ear. “Night, J-bug.” Then, remembering something: “Oh… Mira called. They’re thinking of having a campfire on the hike tomorrow. Want me to pack some potatoes?”

Johnny bobs so hard even his feet wiggle. “Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes!!!”

Julia laughs. “Ok, ok, settle down. I’ll put them in your backpack.” She draws the cover over his shoulder with one last kiss on the head. “Sleep tight.” Pulling up just enough to turn to Quinn, she snorts, seeing him screw up his eyes to peer through her hair on his face. They both grin as his hand slides up from her back to gently tuck the loose strands behind her ear, then meeting halfway for a soft kiss. “I’ll be outside. Take your time,” she whispers, rising.

They grasp fingers briefly, her hand gliding over his arm as it releases her, before she’s gone just as fast. With a sigh, Quinn rolls back on his side, pulling Johnny against him.

“Are you mad at me?” Johnny asks.

“No. Not at all,” Quinn smiles, stroking his hair. “I think it’s sweet. Very sweet. Everything you’ve done. But I really need you to stop. We both do. It’s not the time, Jo. I have a lot on my mind these days, and so does Mom. I think it’ll be better for all of us if we just enjoy the little time we get to spend together these days. I know you want to make it easier, speed things up. But we worry about you, and it just makes it harder, whether you want it or not. Just… let us work this out, our own way.” He rests his cheek on top of Johnny’s head. “And you know what else? It’s something we gotta do for Mom. You and me both. She asked for time, and we’re gonna give it to her. Because she deserves it. And because we love her.”

After a seemingly interminable pause, Johnny sighs his surrender, not a word, just his forehead rubbing against his father’s chest in a silent “Ok.” Quinn places a soft hand on his head, tilting it up so that they are face to face, winding down as the tiredness takes over. They chat some more, mostly about DS9, setting aside the topics that merit a longer discussion for tomorrow; they talk about Johnny’s hiking trip, baking potatoes on a campfire, maybe going camping together before school starts. Slowly, Johnny’s eyelids begin to droop, words coming out slurred, parts of sentences swallowed. Until finally he drifts off. Just like that he goes limp in his father’s arms, head rolling back, eyes closed, breaths slowing. Quinn stays a while, fingers still combing Johnny’s hair, but much softer now, gentler, wishing he could close his own eyes and let the serenity swallow him whole.

Johnny stirs and mumbles in his sleep as Quinn carefully picks him up to free his arm, laying him back on the pillow and tucking the blanket around him. “Sweet dreams, snuggle-bug.” He whispers a kiss on his boy’s cheek before quietly closing the door behind him.

\---------------------------------------

Back in the living room, barefoot and carrying his shoes, he finds the lights dimmed, all except the floor lamp next to the couch. Julia is curled in the corner, wrapped in a quilt with her book. He drops next to her, sliding down with a frustrated half-growl until his knees touch the coffee table, his neck folded in on itself against the back of the sofa. Arching a brow, Julia takes off her reading glasses. “Tough mission?”

Shooting her a playfully withering look, he huffs something incoherent that sounds a lot like “Wait for the debriefing,” then swings sideways and lies down with his head on her lap. “You know…” he starts, taking away her book. “This one time, I was captured. Near Shiraz. I was on my way to a rendezvous point with the extraction team. Was detained by an armed patrol. Nothing serious, I knew Dar was getting me out. But I spent three rather… _unsettling_ days in isolation, cramped in a cell where I could neither lie nor sit comfortably. They’d only drag me out to be questioned for hours at a time, cuffed to a chair, no food, no water, light in my eyes, crap like that.”

Julia swallows the dread, disconcerted, but trying to match his nonchalant tone. “Good times. There a point to this delightfully uplifting tale?”

“The point _is…”_ He motions in the general direction of Johnny’s room. “Compared to what just went on in _there..._ Shiraz was… a fucking walk in a park.”

They laugh a little and he fills her in, debriefing style: short and to the point, but not sparing the key details. “I swear to God, I came _this_ close to screaming my head off for you to come in.”

Julia wraps an arm around his chest, smiling down as he holds it in place with both of his. “You did great. I doubt I could’ve handled it any better.”

Quinn looks up. “He ever ask you? About this stuff I mean?”

“Oh Gosh… Ask? Not _exactly._ We _talked_ about it. _Sort of._ Once or twice.” She shakes her head. “It’s a new world. Kids are exposed to a lot of content, you can’t control it all. I don’t think I found out about sex until I was… twelve? Thirteen maybe? Last year his teacher confiscated a Playboy from one of his buddies. Timmy. A good kid, good family. I try to screen the movies he watches, but… it’s out there, you know. Like… he knows he’s not supposed to barge into my bedroom if the door is closed, not without knocking. But I don’t know if he actually knows _why._ Or if he ever _thinks_ about me in that way. Well, I didn’t know, until _now.”_

“So… it’s not just _me,_ right? I mean… it _is…_ what’s the word…”

“Embarrassing? Inappropriate? Hell yeah! I’d probably die in there before finding a way out of that rabbit hole.” She runs her fingers through his hair. “You did great. I mean it. You guys have this… I dunno what it is. Like you said: you’re not _buddies._ But you _are._ In a way. The way you treat him, honest with him, direct... I wanna say you’re off to a great start, but I guess you’re halfway there already.” With a lump of sadness in her throat, she adds after a long pause: “Whatever becomes of _us,_ you’re a great dad, Peter. And he’s lucky to finally have you.”

Quinn sits up, and, as she snuggles closer, they lace arms and kiss. “It was wonderful,” he whispers, caressing her cheek. “Today, tonight, all of it, Jule.”

She gives him a sly half-smirk. “I guess we should do it again sometime.”

“That mean I made it to the third date?”

“I’d say.” They kiss again, realizing halfway how long it’s been since they last did this - the ‘smiley’ kiss: giggling, snorting, murmuring nonsense into each other’s mouths, wrinkling noses. “Hey, you want some more wine? Something stronger?”

Holding her to him, he considers his next move. He would love to stay. The mere thought of walking out the door feels like an anvil on his chest. But he came home last night past 1am. This morning he was up at five. Tomorrow will be no different. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. He’s going the distance this time: he needs to be able to work, study, build his life. He wants it - _needs_ for it - to last.

“I think I’ll take a raincheck,” he says with a heavy heart in the end, kissing her head. “That ok?”

She could never tell him how proud she is of him, at this moment and all the time. How the mere thought of watching him go feels like a knife through her gut, but how in a weird way the same thought gives her hope. Because seeing how resolved and committed he is, determined to build his life, fighting to keep it, holds more comfort and promise than just his arms around her ever could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NS- Funny thing... I was looking for something online, came around some funny quotes. Lemme brighten your day: 
> 
> _How to be successful: Focus on your own shit._  
> 
> Aaand... 
> 
> _When one door closes, sometimes you want to get a hammer and nails to make sure that bitch stays shut._  
> 
> Oh, and my favorite:
> 
> _Some people just need a high-five. In the face. With a chair._  
> 
> I guess after that all that was left to do is post. Am I right? //Much Bunny love!!!
> 
>  
> 
> To GC- Happy belated B-Day still!!! :-*


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